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The following are the results of running the language implementations over a number of scripts, each of which is a reasonable stress-test of various aspects of language and data processing.

Perl, mawk, awka, gawk, tcl and nawk were all compiled using gcc, using -O optimisation. The Awka times are based on the running time for the executable, not the time taken for translation and compiling. The tests were performed on a Pentium II 450mhz running RedHat Linux 5.2, and all measurements are in seconds. Results may differ slightly on other platforms.

Note: the following timings are now quite old, and may no longer be correct. One day I'll get around to updating them...

Test: "Cast", Awk source, Perl source

awka: ------------------- (38.51)
gawk: ----------------------- (47.44)
mawk: ----------------------------------------- (85.74)
nawk: -------------------------------------------------- (105.59)
perl: ----------------------- (47.65)

Test: "Array 1", Awk Source, Perl source, Tcl source

awka: ------------------ (20.42)
gawk: ----------------------------- (32.58)
mawk: -------------------------------------------------- (57.71)
nawk: ----------------------------------------------- (53.55)
perl: -------------------------------- (36.45)
tcl:  ---------------------------------- (39.20)

Test: "Array 2", Awk Source, Perl source, Tcl source

awka: ---- (6.41)
gawk: ---------------------- (43.01)
mawk: ---- (7.73)
nawk: -------------------------------------------------- (99.04)
perl: ---------------------------------- (66.04)
tcl:  -------------------------- (49.84)

Test: "Array 3", Awk Source, Perl source, Tcl source

awka: --------- (17.93)
gawk: -------------------- (39.07)
mawk: -------------------------------------------------- (100.47)
nawk: ------------------------- (49.69)
perl: ------------------- (36.77)
tcl:  ------------------------------------ (71.56)

Test: "I/O", Awk Source, Perl source, Tcl source

awka: --------- (18.79)
gawk: ------------------ (39.46)
mawk: ------------ (26.62)
nawk: ---------------------------------------- (91.71)
perl: ---------------------------- (64.26)
tcl:  -------------------------------------------------- (115.05)

Test: "Split", Awk Source, Perl Source

awka: --------- (32.69)
gawk: --------------------- (80.94)
mawk: ------- (24.12)
nawk: -------------------------------------------------- (197.53)
perl: ---------------- (62.87)

Test: "Function", Awk Source, Perl Source

awka: ---------- (36.22)
gawk: -------------------------------------------------- (200.74)
mawk: -------- (31.21)
nawk: ------------------------------------- (147.79)
perl: -------------------- (79.25)

Test: "Expression", Awk Source, Perl Source

awka: -------------- (33.00)
gawk: ------------------------ (58.95)
mawk: ----------------- (40.72)
nawk: -------------------------------------------------- (123.80)
perl: ---------------------------------------- (98.31)

Test: "Parsecsv", Awk Source

awka: ---------------- (59.39)
gawk: ------- (25.54)
mawk: ------------------- (69.65)
nawk: -------------------------------------------------- (185.79)

Test: "Nested Loop", Awk Source, Perl Source, (input data)

awka: --- (7.66)
gawk: -------------------- (56.67)
mawk: -------------------- (54.77)
nawk: -------------------------------------------------- (142.57)
perl: ----------------- (45.92)

Test: "Regexp", Awk Source

awka: ----------------------------------------- (22.07)
gawk: -------------------------------------------------- (27.51)
mawk: -------------- (7.57)
nawk: ---------------------------------------------- (24.77)
 

I am always interested in new benchmark examples - if you have one, I'd be happy to include it here. I'd also like to have some idea how other Awk implementations such as TAWK and MKS Awk compare to the above.
 
 

Andrew Sumner - (andrewsumner at users.sourceforge.net)
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