6 ms·

Yes, PHP is faster than C#

15 points by withinboredom 5y ago

behnamoh 5y ago
What's the point?
- chaps 5y ago
WheelsAtLarge 5y ago
Ya, maybe. But it's easier to develop bug free code on C#. Speed has its advantages but it's not the only criteria used to decide what language to use.
- CharlesW 5y ago
  > But it's easier to develop bug free code on C#. Wow, that's a claim I've never seen before. What's it based on? (As an example, I'm wondering if you may not be aware that there are several static analysis tools for PHP.)
  - WheelsAtLarge 5y ago
    I'm going by an article I read a few years ago. https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2017/10/221326-a-large-scale-study-of-programming-languages-and-code-quality-in-github/fulltext https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2017/10/221326-a-large-scale-... Also, I used to program in both and known issues within the PHP language would make my development so much harder. But it's been pointed out to me that PHP has improved over the years so it might not be as difficult as before.
- 40four 5y ago
  I respectfully disagree. Modern PHP is an excellent language to work in, despite all the gripes old timers have from the old version 4/5 days. You can write top shelf Object oriented patterns, with first class dependency injection support. Type hinting. Built in Interface support. A really nice module/ import system. Composer is a fantastic dependency manger, and automatically gives you a magical class autoloader script with a small amount of configuration. Also PHP 8 includes all the modern conveniences you’d expect, like arrow function notation for closures, Enums, the Null Coalescing Operator, need I go on? :)
  - WheelsAtLarge 5y ago
    You have a point. It's been years since I worked on both so things might have changed. I'm thinking of a time when you not only needed to know PHP but you also had to know the work arounds of known issues with the language. PHP is very popular so maybe all that stuff has gone away or reduced greatly.
    - 40four 5y ago
      I respect your response. To be fair, I’m biased because I’ve only been doing web development for about 5-6 years. And I just so happened to land a job at a company firmly entrenched in the PHP world. So I came into the game late. I missed all the nonsense, and reasons a lot of more experienced web developers hate PHP. But working in Laravel is fantastic, and I equate it to the same reasons many developers love working in Ruby on Rails. The framework gives you high level design patterns out of the box, and the ecosystem surrounding it is incredible.
Mindless2112 5y ago
This is a pretty worthless comparison. * The C# version invokes EndOfStream up to 4096 times for every 1 call to feof in PHP version. * The C# version opens the file in text mode (and thus does UTF-8 decoding) whereas the PHP version opens the file in binary mode.
- withinboredom 5y ago
  The C# version only makes a syscall if the buffer is empty: https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/blob/1ba0394d71a4ea6bee7f6b28a22d666b7b56f913/src/libraries/System.Private.CoreLib/src/System/IO/StreamReader.cs#L304 https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/blob/1ba0394d71a4ea6bee7f6... To read in binary, you open with 'rb' and not just 'r'
  - Mindless2112 5y ago
    Syscalls are not the only consumer of wall clock time, which is what was measured. > To read in binary, you open with 'rb' and not just 'r'. No. "The default translation mode is 'b'." [1] And even in 't' mode, it's still reading bytes in PHP vs UCS-2 characters in C#. [1] https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.fopen.php https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.fopen.php
  - deltaci 5y ago
    but it makes function calls, it's not neglectable as it's called as many time as the bytes the file has
    - withinboredom 5y ago
      That’s the api provided, and part of the point. The other option is to read the buffer directly, but it isn’t exposed to the programmer.
      - deltaci 5y ago
        You just need to do File.OpenRead instead of OpenText to get a FileStream, then you can read the buffer
alkonaut 5y ago
Isn’t this reading the file in 4K chunks in the php version and byte by byte in the C# version? If so they are completely different programs. The C# program would have 4096 times the number of method calls to Read()? Edit: To clarify it’s buffered in C# too but the difference is that it’s fetched one byte at a time via a method call per byte. Not an I/O call per byte (then the difference would have been much larger of course).
- withinboredom 5y ago
  You can follow the link to the underlying C# library where it is reading it in 4kb chunks as well. PHP doesn’t buffer for you, so if you want to read a file one byte (to your peril) at a time, you can. It’ll be as fast as the async version of the C# implementation, but still slower than reading buffered.
  - alkonaut 5y ago
    Both of these programs will make the same I/O calls but the total number of method invocations will differ by a factor 4096 unless I’m mistaken (it’s late). Those are cheap, but not free.
- notRobot 5y ago
  This is addressed in the article: > “But Rob,” I hear you say, “they’re not reading it byte-by-byte in the PHP version!” and I’d reply with, “but we’re not reading it byte-by-byte in the C# version either!” C# also reads in 4K chunks: https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/blob/1ba0394d71a4ea6bee7f6b28a22d666b7b56f913/src/libraries/System.Private.CoreLib/src/System/IO/StreamReader.cs#L649-L767 https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/blob/1ba0394d71a4ea6bee7f6...
  - alkonaut 5y ago
    That just means there aren’t 4K times as many file read ops. The read() calls (which most of the time just increment the index into the buffer and returns what’s there) are still made. The usual way of doing what he’s trying to do will look exactly the same in C# as in his php version, with explicit buffering.
overgard 5y ago
That's a very convincing demonstration... that the author doesn't understand how to write moderately efficient C#
deltaci 5y ago
this is very naive reimplentation of the C# version. I managed to reduce the runtime of the same file from 5.7 seconds to just 800ms using var file = File.OpenRead("file.bin"); var counter = 0; var sw = Stopwatch.StartNew(); var buf = new byte[4096]; while (file.Read(buf,0,buf.Length) > 0) { foreach (var t in buf) { if (t == '1') { counter++; } } } sw.Stop(); Console.WriteLine($"Counted {counter:N0} 1s in {sw.Elapsed.TotalMilliseconds:N4} milliseconds");
- Someone 5y ago
  If you know the file isn’t too large, there also is File.ReadAllBytes (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.io.file.readallbytes?view=net-6.0 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.io.file.r...) My C# is very rusty (no pun intended) but I would guess the core of the program could be something like File.ReadAllBytes("file.bin").Where(x => x == '1').Count() And nitpick: the code you gave has a bug. file.Read can return less than 4096. If so, you should only loop over the part of the buffer it filled.
- cakoose 5y ago
  This code has a bug that can cause the count to be overreported. The last `file.Read` may only partially fill the buffer, but this code will look for 1s in the entire buffer. (This bug won't affect the performance comparison, but I was just reminded of how error prone these kinds APIs can be vs the PHP/Python route of having the library function just allocate a new buffer each time.)
  - kerblang 5y ago
    Would something like this help? (No of course I haven't compiled it.) int len; while ((len=file.Read(buf,0,buf.Length)) > 0) { for (int i=0; i<len; i++_) { if (buf[i] == '1') { counter++; } } }
Thristle 5y ago
1.that's not pretty good C# code. Though i can't comment on the quality of PHP 2.Programming languages are more then their syntax, they are entire ecosystems. 99% of the time its not the syntax/features/paradigms that make you move fast its the libraries
goaty_tyaotg 5y ago
Does anyone know if PHP's "substr_count" function uses SIMD? I did a write-up on this: https://dev.to/goaty92/in-response-to-yes-php-is-faster-than-c-2a2g https://dev.to/goaty92/in-response-to-yes-php-is-faster-than... where I implemented a counter with SIMD and get a 10-fold performance increase.
- withinboredom 5y ago
  Here's the latest optimization to that func: https://github.com/php/php-src/commit/085b360abb622abc18b955a23cea12f752feea3d https://github.com/php/php-src/commit/085b360abb622abc18b955... In the latest addendum on the blog post, I ended up removing the counting of 1s.
stillbourne 5y ago
C# isn't the unholy incantations of unmaintainable cargo cult development. I don't care if its faster, I care if I have to weep for hours prior rewriting ungodly spaghetti. I've written code in many languages professionally, in the hierarchy of fuckery I've seen done in order to write code php is worse than perl, which is worse than js, which is worse than sucking on the teets of the chthonic elder gods. I would rather eat a hefty bowl of my own vomit while walking across a mile of broken glass before having to maintain anything written in php.
- withinboredom 5y ago
  Damn dude. That’s almost as epic as https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags/ https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open...

15 points by withinboredom 5y ago

behnamoh 5y ago

What's the point?

chaps 5y ago

WheelsAtLarge 5y ago

Ya, maybe. But it's easier to develop bug free code on C#. Speed has its advantages but it's not the only criteria used to decide what language to use.

CharlesW 5y ago
> But it's easier to develop bug free code on C#. Wow, that's a claim I've never seen before. What's it based on? (As an example, I'm wondering if you may not be aware that there are several static analysis tools for PHP.)
- WheelsAtLarge 5y ago
  I'm going by an article I read a few years ago. https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2017/10/221326-a-large-scale-study-of-programming-languages-and-code-quality-in-github/fulltext https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2017/10/221326-a-large-scale-... Also, I used to program in both and known issues within the PHP language would make my development so much harder. But it's been pointed out to me that PHP has improved over the years so it might not be as difficult as before.
40four 5y ago
I respectfully disagree. Modern PHP is an excellent language to work in, despite all the gripes old timers have from the old version 4/5 days. You can write top shelf Object oriented patterns, with first class dependency injection support. Type hinting. Built in Interface support. A really nice module/ import system. Composer is a fantastic dependency manger, and automatically gives you a magical class autoloader script with a small amount of configuration. Also PHP 8 includes all the modern conveniences you’d expect, like arrow function notation for closures, Enums, the Null Coalescing Operator, need I go on? :)
- WheelsAtLarge 5y ago
  You have a point. It's been years since I worked on both so things might have changed. I'm thinking of a time when you not only needed to know PHP but you also had to know the work arounds of known issues with the language. PHP is very popular so maybe all that stuff has gone away or reduced greatly.
  - 40four 5y ago
    I respect your response. To be fair, I’m biased because I’ve only been doing web development for about 5-6 years. And I just so happened to land a job at a company firmly entrenched in the PHP world. So I came into the game late. I missed all the nonsense, and reasons a lot of more experienced web developers hate PHP. But working in Laravel is fantastic, and I equate it to the same reasons many developers love working in Ruby on Rails. The framework gives you high level design patterns out of the box, and the ecosystem surrounding it is incredible.

Mindless2112 5y ago

This is a pretty worthless comparison. * The C# version invokes EndOfStream up to 4096 times for every 1 call to feof in PHP version. * The C# version opens the file in text mode (and thus does UTF-8 decoding) whereas the PHP version opens the file in binary mode.

withinboredom 5y ago
The C# version only makes a syscall if the buffer is empty: https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/blob/1ba0394d71a4ea6bee7f6b28a22d666b7b56f913/src/libraries/System.Private.CoreLib/src/System/IO/StreamReader.cs#L304 https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/blob/1ba0394d71a4ea6bee7f6... To read in binary, you open with 'rb' and not just 'r'
- Mindless2112 5y ago
  Syscalls are not the only consumer of wall clock time, which is what was measured. > To read in binary, you open with 'rb' and not just 'r'. No. "The default translation mode is 'b'." [1] And even in 't' mode, it's still reading bytes in PHP vs UCS-2 characters in C#. [1] https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.fopen.php https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.fopen.php
- deltaci 5y ago
  but it makes function calls, it's not neglectable as it's called as many time as the bytes the file has
  - withinboredom 5y ago
    That’s the api provided, and part of the point. The other option is to read the buffer directly, but it isn’t exposed to the programmer.
    - deltaci 5y ago
      You just need to do File.OpenRead instead of OpenText to get a FileStream, then you can read the buffer

alkonaut 5y ago

Isn’t this reading the file in 4K chunks in the php version and byte by byte in the C# version? If so they are completely different programs. The C# program would have 4096 times the number of method calls to Read()? Edit: To clarify it’s buffered in C# too but the difference is that it’s fetched one byte at a time via a method call per byte. Not an I/O call per byte (then the difference would have been much larger of course).

withinboredom 5y ago
You can follow the link to the underlying C# library where it is reading it in 4kb chunks as well. PHP doesn’t buffer for you, so if you want to read a file one byte (to your peril) at a time, you can. It’ll be as fast as the async version of the C# implementation, but still slower than reading buffered.
- alkonaut 5y ago
  Both of these programs will make the same I/O calls but the total number of method invocations will differ by a factor 4096 unless I’m mistaken (it’s late). Those are cheap, but not free.
notRobot 5y ago
This is addressed in the article: > “But Rob,” I hear you say, “they’re not reading it byte-by-byte in the PHP version!” and I’d reply with, “but we’re not reading it byte-by-byte in the C# version either!” C# also reads in 4K chunks: https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/blob/1ba0394d71a4ea6bee7f6b28a22d666b7b56f913/src/libraries/System.Private.CoreLib/src/System/IO/StreamReader.cs#L649-L767 https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/blob/1ba0394d71a4ea6bee7f6...
- alkonaut 5y ago
  That just means there aren’t 4K times as many file read ops. The read() calls (which most of the time just increment the index into the buffer and returns what’s there) are still made. The usual way of doing what he’s trying to do will look exactly the same in C# as in his php version, with explicit buffering.

overgard 5y ago

That's a very convincing demonstration... that the author doesn't understand how to write moderately efficient C#

deltaci 5y ago

this is very naive reimplentation of the C# version. I managed to reduce the runtime of the same file from 5.7 seconds to just 800ms using var file = File.OpenRead("file.bin"); var counter = 0; var sw = Stopwatch.StartNew(); var buf = new byte[4096]; while (file.Read(buf,0,buf.Length) > 0) { foreach (var t in buf) { if (t == '1') { counter++; } } } sw.Stop(); Console.WriteLine($"Counted {counter:N0} 1s in {sw.Elapsed.TotalMilliseconds:N4} milliseconds");

Someone 5y ago
If you know the file isn’t too large, there also is File.ReadAllBytes (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.io.file.readallbytes?view=net-6.0 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.io.file.r...) My C# is very rusty (no pun intended) but I would guess the core of the program could be something like File.ReadAllBytes("file.bin").Where(x => x == '1').Count() And nitpick: the code you gave has a bug. file.Read can return less than 4096. If so, you should only loop over the part of the buffer it filled.
cakoose 5y ago
This code has a bug that can cause the count to be overreported. The last `file.Read` may only partially fill the buffer, but this code will look for 1s in the entire buffer. (This bug won't affect the performance comparison, but I was just reminded of how error prone these kinds APIs can be vs the PHP/Python route of having the library function just allocate a new buffer each time.)
- kerblang 5y ago
  Would something like this help? (No of course I haven't compiled it.) int len; while ((len=file.Read(buf,0,buf.Length)) > 0) { for (int i=0; i<len; i++_) { if (buf[i] == '1') { counter++; } } }

Thristle 5y ago

1.that's not pretty good C# code. Though i can't comment on the quality of PHP 2.Programming languages are more then their syntax, they are entire ecosystems. 99% of the time its not the syntax/features/paradigms that make you move fast its the libraries

goaty_tyaotg 5y ago

Does anyone know if PHP's "substr_count" function uses SIMD? I did a write-up on this: https://dev.to/goaty92/in-response-to-yes-php-is-faster-than-c-2a2g https://dev.to/goaty92/in-response-to-yes-php-is-faster-than... where I implemented a counter with SIMD and get a 10-fold performance increase.

withinboredom 5y ago
Here's the latest optimization to that func: https://github.com/php/php-src/commit/085b360abb622abc18b955a23cea12f752feea3d https://github.com/php/php-src/commit/085b360abb622abc18b955... In the latest addendum on the blog post, I ended up removing the counting of 1s.

stillbourne 5y ago

C# isn't the unholy incantations of unmaintainable cargo cult development. I don't care if its faster, I care if I have to weep for hours prior rewriting ungodly spaghetti. I've written code in many languages professionally, in the hierarchy of fuckery I've seen done in order to write code php is worse than perl, which is worse than js, which is worse than sucking on the teets of the chthonic elder gods. I would rather eat a hefty bowl of my own vomit while walking across a mile of broken glass before having to maintain anything written in php.

withinboredom 5y ago
Damn dude. That’s almost as epic as https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags/ https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open...