Hello All, I've recently developed an XS module for Template Toolkit that should help improve performance. I started with Andy's work from last year and rewrote it to work with Template Toolkit version 2.04. Amazingly, it passes all tests in the ''make test'' suite. Under ideal conditions, it's about twice as fast as the original, pure-perl version.
Attached you will find a tarball with the changes. I've successfully
compiled it on FreeBSD 4.3 and RH Linux 6.2 using gcc 2.95.3 with the
''-O -Wall -ansi'' options; your mileage may vary.
I want to thank TicketMaster, Inc. for giving me the opportunity to
develop, test and then release this code to the community.
- doug
Template-Toolkit-2.04/xs/README
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Template::Stash::XS August 2001
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Introduction:
* This is an XS implementation of the Template::Stash module, based
in part upon work that Andy Wardley did late last year. It is
an alternative version of the core Template::Stash methods ''get''
and ''set'' (the ones that should benefit most from a speedy C
implementation), along with some virtual methods (like first, last,
reverse, etc.)
How to Build:
1) Fetch and extract the Template-Toolkit-2.04.tar.gz and
TT-2.04-XS.tar.gz tarballs:
# mkdir work
# cd work
# tar zxf Template-Toolkit-2.04.tar.gz
# tar zxf TT-2.04-XS.tar.gz
2) Build Template Toolkit as usual, and answer ''yes'' to the XS
Stash questions. Note: Unless you answer ''yes' to the second
question, the ''make test'' step will not actually be testing the
XS version. If so desired, use the PREFIX= option to install in
an alternative directory. Also, you'll need a recent version of
File::Spec to pass all the tests -- see this link:
http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=File-Spec
# cd Template-Toolkit-2.04
# perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/somplace/else
... Do you want to build the XS Stash module?
... Do you want to use the XS Stash for all Templates?
# make
# make test
3) Run the additional test script ''tt-bench.pl'' to see the
improvement in speed. You may need to install the BSD::Resource
module -- see http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=BSD-Resource
# perl tt-bench.pl
4) Optionally, install the new Template Toolkit:
# make install
Additional Notes:
* Depending upon the size and content of a template, this version
has about twice the speed of the original Template::Stash.
* When a virtual method (like pop, push, nsort, sort etc.) has not
been implemented in XS, it uses these hashrefs in Template::Stash
package -- $HASH_OPS, $LIST_OPS, and $SCALAR_OPS -- to call perl
subroutines that can do the work.
* Using the ''reference'' feature of Template Toolkit -- like
[% a = \foo %] -- leaks a large amount of memory. Enable the
template code at the end of ''tt-bench.pl'' for a demonstration.
(Note: This is a problem in the pure-perl version, too. Also,
you'll need a platform that fully supports getrusage() -- FreeBSD
and IRIX are two that should work. Otherwise, use a utility like
''top''. )
* Although it passes all the tests that I've thrown at it, there may
still be some problems and/or bugs. My primary goal was to mirror
the behavior of the pure-perl version using XS.
* Profiling code can be enabled with ''#define TT_PERF_ENABLE'' in
the Stash.xs source, but doing so hurts performance a bit. The
results can be displayed by adding the line:
print Template::Stash::XS::performance(1);
to your code. Use a 0 instead of 1 for a more compact display.
* If you make changes to Stash.xs, simply run ''make'' and optionally
''make install'' in the Template-Toolkit-2.04 directory.
Furthermore, there's no need to try crazy compiler optimizations on
this code, because a majority of time is spent inside Perl's
functions.
* Here's the manifest for the TT-2.04-XS.tar.gz package:
Template-Toolkit-2.04/Makefile.PL
Template-Toolkit-2.04/tt-bench.pl
Template-Toolkit-2.04/lib/Template/Stash/XS.pm
Template-Toolkit-2.04/t/stash-xs.t
Template-Toolkit-2.04/xs/MANIFEST
Template-Toolkit-2.04/xs/Makefile.PL
Template-Toolkit-2.04/xs/README
Template-Toolkit-2.04/xs/Stash.xs
TT-2.04-XS.tar.gz
Description: GNU Zip compressed data
