Some aspects of Tcl's filesystem (glob, file, pwd, cd primarily) became a bit slower with the vfs layer that was introduced in Tcl 8.4.0. This has gradually been addressed with later Tcl 8.4.x releases and also with Tcl 8.5.x. The current timings are as follows:
001 FILE exec interp 11390 11825 10120
002 FILE exec interp: exit 11451 12000 11910
003 FILE exec interp: pkg require 49464 63563 26840
004 FILE exec interp: pkg require+ 74524 89706 45733
005 FILE exec interp: pkg require+auto_path 57918 78988 37400
006 FILE exists tmpfile (obj) 20 21 30
007 FILE exists ~ 11 12 30
008 FILE exists! absolute tmpfile (obj) 17 18 20
009 FILE exists! absolute tmpfile (str) 23 193 21
010 FILE exists! relative tmpfile (obj) 14 18 10
011 FILE exists! relative tmpfile (str) 18 339 20
012 FILE exists! tmpfile (obj) 20 21 20
013 FILE exists! tmpfile (str) 26 274 20
014 FILE glob tmpdir (30 entries) / -dir 4582 4627 4500
015 FILE glob tmpdir (30 entries) / cd 5067 5226 4510
016 FILE glob tmpdir (subset of 30 entries) 2324 4613 4400
017 FILE glob / all subcommands 72873 62841 101750
018 FILE glob / atime 6219 7240 11510
019 FILE glob / attributes 47786 46769 45560
020 FILE glob / dirname 5385 5345 4910
021 FILE glob / executable 7925 6901 5610
022 FILE glob / exists 6957 6803 5600
023 FILE glob / extension 5031 4868 4610
024 FILE glob / isdirectory 6459 7253 12620
025 FILE glob / isfile 7563 7198 12220
026 FILE glob / mtime 6466 7232 12210
027 FILE glob / owned 6505 7238 12220
028 FILE glob / readable 10518 6771 5510
029 FILE glob / rootname 4842 4816 4610
030 FILE glob / size 6516 7309 11410
031 FILE glob / tail 5111 5046 4710
032 FILE glob / writable 10940 6775 6810
033 FILE glob deep dirs (30 entries+) 53471 52319 44770
034 FILE glob deep dirs (subset of 30 entries+) 34275 51626 42360
035 FILE glob dirs (30 entries) 4751 4554 11310
036 FILE recurse / -dir 90779 100767 128590
037 FILE recurse / cd 99308 164254 126180
038 FILE recurse+stat / -dir 118139 134507 225530
039 FILE recurse+stat / cd 123270 194716 219610
040 FILE standard directory 'package require' 55761 54815 777467
040 BENCHMARKS 1:8.5a0 2:8.4.5 3:8.3.5(This is for a slightly modified version of file.bench, and a slightly modified version of Tcl 8.5a0 which is undergoing performance testing, where the above timings are on WinXP. Also see end of page for a normalized version).
If you have particular pieces of code using file, glob which are slower in Tcl 8.4/8.5, please add them to this page so that they can be added to the benchmark suite.
Note: reading from and writing to files is a totally separate topic, i.e. channel i/o, which has nothing to do with the vfs changes made to Tcl 8.4.0, and is therefore irrelevant to the particular benchmarking exercise on this page.
Same data, normalized:
001 FILE exec interp 1.10 1.16 1.00
002 FILE exec interp: exit 1.10 1.16 1.00
003 FILE exec interp: pkg require 1.88 2.40 1.00
004 FILE exec interp: pkg require+ 1.82 2.18 1.00
005 FILE exec interp: pkg require+auto_path 1.53 2.08 1.00
006 FILE exists tmpfile (obj) 1.05 1.05 1.00
007 FILE exists ~ 0.37 0.40 1.00
008 FILE exists! absolute tmpfile (obj) 0.85 0.90 1.00
009 FILE exists! absolute tmpfile (str) 1.15 9.70 1.00
010 FILE exists! relative tmpfile (obj) 0.65 0.90 1.00
011 FILE exists! relative tmpfile (str) 1.80 33.50 1.00
012 FILE exists! tmpfile (obj) 1.00 1.05 1.00
013 FILE exists! tmpfile (str) 1.30 14.05 1.00
014 FILE glob tmpdir (30 entries) / -dir 1.08 1.04 1.00
015 FILE glob tmpdir (30 entries) / cd 1.19 1.17 1.00
016 FILE glob tmpdir (subset of 30 entries) 0.55 1.07 1.00
017 FILE glob / all subcommands 0.72 0.63 1.00
018 FILE glob / atime 0.55 0.64 1.00
019 FILE glob / attributes 1.05 1.10 1.00
020 FILE glob / dirname 1.11 1.10 1.00
021 FILE glob / executable 1.43 1.20 1.00
022 FILE glob / exists 1.07 1.23 1.00
023 FILE glob / extension 1.03 1.05 1.00
024 FILE glob / isdirectory 0.56 0.63 1.00
025 FILE glob / isfile 0.55 0.63 1.00
026 FILE glob / mtime 0.55 0.63 1.00
027 FILE glob / owned 0.56 0.63 1.00
028 FILE glob / readable 1.78 1.22 1.00
029 FILE glob / rootname 1.02 1.04 1.00
030 FILE glob / size 0.56 0.63 1.00
031 FILE glob / tail 1.07 1.05 1.00
032 FILE glob / writable 1.78 1.22 1.00
033 FILE glob deep dirs (30 entries+) 1.19 1.21 1.00
034 FILE glob deep dirs (subset of 30 entries+) 0.78 1.24 1.00
035 FILE glob dirs (30 entries) 0.41 0.41 1.00
036 FILE recurse / -dir 0.68 0.80 1.00
037 FILE recurse / cd 0.79 1.29 1.00
038 FILE recurse+stat / -dir 0.52 0.60 1.00
039 FILE recurse+stat / cd 0.57 0.89 1.00
040 FILE standard directory 'package require' 0.07 0.07 1.00
040 BENCHMARKS 1:8.5a0 2:8.4.5 3:8.3.5