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comp.lang.ruby

[ANN] hpricot 0.7

_why

3/17/2009 6:09:00 PM

Please enjoy a succulent, new Hpricot. A bit faster, some Ruby 1.9
support, and assorted fixes.

gem install hpricot --source http://code.whytheluck...

It should show up at Rubyforge in a bit.

I'm sure you're wondering what's the reason for Hpricot updates, in
the face of heated competition from the Nokogiri and LibXML
libraries. Remember that Hpricot has no dependencies and is smaller
than either of those libs. Hpricot uses its own Ragel-based
parser, so you have the freedom to hack the parser itself, the code
is dwarven by comparison.

Best of all, Hpricot has run on JRuby in the past. And I am in the
process of merging some IronRuby code[1] and porting 0.7 to
JRuby. This means your code will run on a variety of Ruby platforms
without alteration. That alone makes it worthwhile, wouldn't you
agree?

Clearly, the benchmarks you see on Ruby Inside are skewed to favor
Nokogiri. They parse XML through Hpricot without using Hpricot.XML(),
which is not only wrong, but puts XML through needless HTML cleanup
operations. I am sure that Hpricot 0.7 still fares slower on large
documents. However, for instance, try testing a large amount of
small documents (a much more common scenario) with this latest
version.

You have to question a benchmark that is entirely based on two XML
documents. What about HTML fix ups? What about various platforms
and CPUs? Why not treat Hpricot fairly and use it properly in the
benchmarks? It reeks of something.

_why

[1] http://github.com/nrk/ironruby-hpricot/t...
24 Answers

matt

3/17/2009 6:48:00 PM

0

_why <why@ruby-lang.org> wrote:

> I'm sure you're wondering what's the reason for Hpricot updates, in
> the face of heated competition from the Nokogiri and LibXML
> libraries. Remember that Hpricot has no dependencies and is smaller
> than either of those libs. Hpricot uses its own Ragel-based
> parser, so you have the freedom to hack the parser itself, the code
> is dwarven by comparison.

Also, isn't Hpricot more accepting of skanky HTML? m.

--
matt neuburg, phd = matt@tidbits.com, http://www.tidbits...
Leopard - http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/leopard-custom...
AppleScript - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/...
Read TidBITS! It's free and smart. http://www.t...

Phlip

3/17/2009 6:54:00 PM

0

Firstly, major props, and keep up the good work...

_why wrote:

> You have to question a benchmark that is entirely based on two XML
> documents. What about HTML fix ups? What about various platforms
> and CPUs? Why not treat Hpricot fairly and use it properly in the
> benchmarks? It reeks of something.

Here's what I use N for:

//form[
./descendant::fieldset[
./descendant::legend and
./descendant::li[
./descendant::label and
./descendant::input ]
]
]

I generate that from some N::HTML::Builder code, form{ fieldset { etc } }, which
turns into a DOM containing <form><fieldset> etc </fieldset></form>. The goal is
an assertion like this:

assert_xhtml do
h2 'Sales'
select! :size => SaleController::LIST_SIZE do
option names[1]
option names[0]
end
end

The point is to match an example HTML to a target HTML. I first tried it by
walking that object model myself, recursing thru all DOM children to find the
ones that match. However, as the recursion got more complex, I was "adding
epicycles" to the code.

I backed off and rewrote, by first converting all the example HTML into one
jiy-normous XPath, shown above. I have to do it like this because the example
HTML could contain _anything_, and I need the query to run fast and absolutely
stable. My assert_xhtml should not fail if the target code has the correct HTML
subset - or vice versa. I can't do that anywhere except LibXML, and I need to
keep that easy to install.

And, in the grand scheme of things, I don't think _you_ have room to complain
about your libraries' adoption rates!

--
Phlip

Phlip

3/17/2009 6:57:00 PM

0

matt neuburg wrote:

> Also, isn't Hpricot more accepting of skanky HTML? m.

Yeah, and

A> that can sometimes slow it down!

B> we don't have any in my shop...

tidy -asxhtml -i -wrap 130 -m file.html

Ryan Davis

3/17/2009 7:02:00 PM

0


On Mar 17, 2009, at 11:47 , matt neuburg wrote:

> _why <why@ruby-lang.org> wrote:
>
>> I'm sure you're wondering what's the reason for Hpricot updates, in
>> the face of heated competition from the Nokogiri and LibXML
>> libraries. Remember that Hpricot has no dependencies and is smaller
>> than either of those libs. Hpricot uses its own Ragel-based
>> parser, so you have the freedom to hack the parser itself, the code
>> is dwarven by comparison.
>
> Also, isn't Hpricot more accepting of skanky HTML?

no. I've had a bug open for years on hpricot because it couldn't deal
with the relatively simple forms on the trackers on rubyforge.org.
nokogiri dealt with it perfectly and since mechanized migrated from
hpricot to nokogiri I've had fewer issues overall.

I should reemphasize... YEARS. Even the bug tracker has since
disappeared. This is where nokogiri really shines IMBO(*).

*) in my _biased_ opinion. I work/hang out with aaron patterson on a
regular basis. That said, he fixes bugs I (and others--I watch) report
in a timely basis.

Ryan Davis

3/17/2009 7:04:00 PM

0


On Mar 17, 2009, at 11:08 , _why wrote:

> You have to question a benchmark that is entirely based on two XML
> documents. What about HTML fix ups? What about various platforms
> and CPUs? Why not treat Hpricot fairly and use it properly in the
> benchmarks? It reeks of something.

You _do_ have to question it (as you should question all benchmarks,
really)... But that question should come in the form of a bug report,
or a patch. To do otherwise... reeks of something.

Daniele Alessandri

3/17/2009 8:40:00 PM

0

On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 19:08, _why <why@ruby-lang.org> wrote:

> Best of all, Hpricot has run on JRuby in the past. And I am in the
> process of merging some IronRuby code[1] and porting 0.7 to

It seems like my port of Hpricot to IronRuby did not go unnoticed
despite having kept quiet about it so far :-)
By the way, porting 0.7 to IronRuby is on my radar: I am just not sure
about how long this will take (I am pretty busy as of lately) but
staying up to date with the current latest version of Hpricot is
indeed something I want to achieve.

PS: thanks for this new release of Hpricot.

--
Daniele Alessandri
http://www.clorophilla...
http://twitter.co...

John Barnette

3/17/2009 8:47:00 PM

0

On Mar 17, 2009, at 11:08 AM, _why wrote:
> You have to question a benchmark that is entirely based on two XML
> documents. What about HTML fix ups? What about various platforms
> and CPUs? Why not treat Hpricot fairly and use it properly in the
> benchmarks? It reeks of something.

Don't be an ass. Code (and benchmark results) speak much louder than
snark. Aaron has put the current benchmarks up on GitHub[1], and I'm
sure he'll welcome any patches, additions, or corrections.


~ j.

[1] http://github.com/tenderlove...

Aaron Patterson

3/17/2009 9:56:00 PM

0

On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 03:08:39AM +0900, _why wrote:
> Please enjoy a succulent, new Hpricot. A bit faster, some Ruby 1.9
> support, and assorted fixes.
>
> gem install hpricot --source http://code.whytheluck...
>
> It should show up at Rubyforge in a bit.
>
> I'm sure you're wondering what's the reason for Hpricot updates, in
> the face of heated competition from the Nokogiri and LibXML
> libraries. Remember that Hpricot has no dependencies and is smaller
> than either of those libs. Hpricot uses its own Ragel-based
> parser, so you have the freedom to hack the parser itself, the code
> is dwarven by comparison.
>
> Best of all, Hpricot has run on JRuby in the past. And I am in the
> process of merging some IronRuby code[1] and porting 0.7 to
> JRuby. This means your code will run on a variety of Ruby platforms
> without alteration. That alone makes it worthwhile, wouldn't you
> agree?
>
> Clearly, the benchmarks you see on Ruby Inside are skewed to favor
> Nokogiri. They parse XML through Hpricot without using Hpricot.XML(),
> which is not only wrong, but puts XML through needless HTML cleanup
> operations. I am sure that Hpricot 0.7 still fares slower on large
> documents. However, for instance, try testing a large amount of
> small documents (a much more common scenario) with this latest
> version.

Thank you for pointing out my mistakes. The repository[1] is public in
order to keep myself honest. Patches are welcome.

> You have to question a benchmark that is entirely based on two XML
> documents. What about HTML fix ups? What about various platforms
> and CPUs? Why not treat Hpricot fairly and use it properly in the
> benchmarks? It reeks of something.

HTML fix ups will be tested as well. So will CSS searches, XPath
searches, memory usage, and many other things. As I said[2], these benchmarks
are not complete. If you're worried about being treated fairly, fork my
repository and write tests.

[1] https://github.com/tenderlove/xml_...
[2] http://www.rubyinside.com/ruby-xml-performance-benchmarks-1641.html#com...

--
Aaron Patterson
http://tenderlovem...

_why

3/17/2009 11:27:00 PM

0

On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 06:56:19AM +0900, Aaron Patterson wrote:
> HTML fix ups will be tested as well. So will CSS searches, XPath
> searches, memory usage, and many other things. As I said[2], these benchmarks
> are not complete. If you're worried about being treated fairly, fork my
> repository and write tests.

No no, don't be silly, I'd much rather complain and be a sore
loser. I insist.

Look, I think I'd just rather see the benchmarks kept up by a
third party who has nothing to gain and can show a more nuanced
view of the scene. I really wish I could drop Hpricot (as
RubyfulSoup did,) but I think it has its strengths.

Let me ask you this. You're neck and neck with libxml-ruby. The
bulk of your time is spent in the exact same HTML parser as
libxml-ruby. Why the hyperfocus on benchmarks and declaring
yourselves winners? You're never going to be too far off from
their speed. So, I mean, it strikes me as adversarial and needless,
if your library quality and bug fixing are of the sort that Ryan
David has just touted.

_why

Aaron Patterson

3/17/2009 11:48:00 PM

0

On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 08:26:38AM +0900, _why wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 06:56:19AM +0900, Aaron Patterson wrote:
> > HTML fix ups will be tested as well. So will CSS searches, XPath
> > searches, memory usage, and many other things. As I said[2], these benchmarks
> > are not complete. If you're worried about being treated fairly, fork my
> > repository and write tests.
>
> No no, don't be silly, I'd much rather complain and be a sore
> loser. I insist.
>
> Look, I think I'd just rather see the benchmarks kept up by a
> third party who has nothing to gain and can show a more nuanced
> view of the scene. I really wish I could drop Hpricot (as
> RubyfulSoup did,) but I think it has its strengths.

I agree, but who will write them? So far, we only have either poorly
written ones, or speculation. Neither are good. I figured if I wrote
these, put it on github, I could get other people to do the work.

> Let me ask you this. You're neck and neck with libxml-ruby. The
> bulk of your time is spent in the exact same HTML parser as
> libxml-ruby. Why the hyperfocus on benchmarks and declaring
> yourselves winners? You're never going to be too far off from
> their speed. So, I mean, it strikes me as adversarial and needless,
> if your library quality and bug fixing are of the sort that Ryan
> David has just touted.

I'm not sure that 10-20% difference is neck and neck. I actually found
this result to be a surprise. I thought nokogiri would be slower. In
fact, I am sure I will find parts that are slower. Once I do, I know
where I can improve.

I don't understand why you would think this is adversarial. As I said,
these benchmarks are not finished. I am merely trying to collect data,
and I want no emotions involved. I made my tests public so that
hopefully I can remain unbiased. If it seems unfair or incorrect, tell
me so. It won't hurt my feelings. My goal is to learn, and to write
better software.

--
Aaron Patterson
http://tenderlovem...