Open compressed file with gzip zcat perl php lua python

I have a compressed file of:

250.000.000 lines
Compressed the file size is: 671M
Uncompressed, it's: 6,5G

Need to extract a plethora of things and verify some others.

I dont want to use bash but something more elegant, like python or lua.

Looking through “The-Internet”, I’ve created some examples for the single purpose of educating my self.

So here are my results.
BE AWARE they are far-far-far away from perfect in code or execution.

Sorted by (less) time of execution:

pigz

pigz - Parallel gzip - Zlib

# time pigz  -p4 -cd  2016-08-04-06.ldif.gz &> /dev/null

real    0m9.980s
user    0m16.570s
sys 0m0.980s

gzip

gzip 1.8

# time /bin/gzip -cd 2016-08-04-06.ldif.gz &> /dev/null

real    0m23.951s
user    0m23.790s
sys 0m0.150s

zcat

zcat (gzip) 1.8

# time zcat 2016-08-04-06.ldif.gz &> /dev/null

real    0m24.202s
user    0m24.100s
sys 0m0.090s

Perl

Perl v5.24.0

code:

#!/usr/bin/perl

open (FILE, '/bin/gzip -cd 2016-08-04-06.ldif.gz |');

while (my $line = ) {
  print $line;
}

close FILE;

time:

# time ./dump.pl &> /dev/null

real    0m49.942s
user    1m14.260s
sys 0m2.350s

PHP

PHP 7.0.9 (cli)

code:

#!/usr/bin/php

< ? php

  $fp = gzopen("2016-08-04-06.ldif.gz", "r");

  while (($buffer = fgets($fp, 4096)) !== false) {
        echo $buffer;
  }

  gzclose($fp);

 ? >

time:

# time php -f dump.php &> /dev/null

real    1m19.407s
user    1m4.840s
sys 0m14.340s

PHP - Iteration #2

PHP 7.0.9 (cli)

Impressed with php results, I took the perl-approach on code:

< ? php

  $fp = popen("/bin/gzip -cd 2016-08-04-06.ldif.gz", "r");

  while (($buffer = fgets($fp, 4096)) !== false) {
        echo $buffer;
  }

  pclose($fp);

 ? >

time:

# time php -f dump2.php &> /dev/null

real    1m6.845s
user    1m15.590s
sys 0m19.940s

not bad !

Lua

Lua 5.3.3

code:

#!/usr/bin/lua

local gzip = require 'gzip'

local filename = "2016-08-04-06.ldif.gz"

for l in gzip.lines(filename) do
  print(l)
end

time:

# time ./dump.lua &> /dev/null

real    3m50.899s
user    3m35.080s
sys 0m15.780s

Lua - Iteration #2

Lua 5.3.3

I was depressed to see that php is faster than lua!!
Depressed I say !

So here is my next iteration on lua:

code:

#!/usr/bin/lua

local file = assert(io.popen('/bin/gzip -cd 2016-08-04-06.ldif.gz', 'r'))

while true do
        line = file:read()
        if line == nil then break end
        print (line)
end
file:close()

time:

# time ./dump2.lua &> /dev/null

real    2m45.908s
user    2m54.470s
sys 0m21.360s

One minute faster than before, but still too slow !!

Lua - Zlib

Lua 5.3.3

My next iteration with lua is using zlib :

code:

#!/usr/bin/lua

local zlib = require 'zlib'
local filename = "2016-08-04-06.ldif.gz"

local block = 64
local d = zlib.inflate()

local file = assert(io.open(filename, "rb"))
while true do
  bytes = file:read(block)
  if not bytes then break end
  print (d(bytes))
end

file:close()

time:

# time ./dump.lua  &> /dev/null

real    0m41.546s
user    0m40.460s
sys 0m1.080s

Now, that's what I am talking about !!!

Playing with window_size (block) can make your code faster or slower.

Python v3

Python 3.5.2

code:

#!/usr/bin/python

import gzip

filename='2016-08-04-06.ldif.gz'
with gzip.open(filename, 'r') as f:
    for line in f:
        print(line,)

time:

# time ./dump.py &> /dev/null

real    13m14.460s
user    13m13.440s
sys 0m0.670s

Not enough tissues on the whole damn world!

Python v3 - Iteration #2

Python 3.5.2

but wait ... a moment ... The default mode for gzip.open is 'rb'.
(read binary)

let's try this once more with rt(read-text) mode:

code:

#!/usr/bin/python

import gzip

filename='2016-08-04-06.ldif.gz'
with gzip.open(filename, 'rt') as f:
    for line in f:
        print(line, end="")

time:

# time ./dump.py &> /dev/null

real    5m33.098s
user    5m32.610s
sys 0m0.410s

With only one super tiny change and run time in half!!!
But still tooo slow.

Python v3 - Iteration #3

Python 3.5.2

Let's try a third iteration with popen this time.

code:

#!/usr/bin/python

import os

cmd = "/bin/gzip -cd 2016-08-04-06.ldif.gz"
f = os.popen(cmd)
for line in f:
  print(line, end="")
f.close()

time:

# time ./dump2.py &> /dev/null

real    6m45.646s
user    7m13.280s
sys 0m6.470s

Python v3 - zlib Iteration #1

Python 3.5.2

Let's try a zlib iteration this time.

code:

#!/usr/bin/python

import zlib

d = zlib.decompressobj(zlib.MAX_WBITS | 16)
filename='2016-08-04-06.ldif.gz'

with open(filename, 'rb') as f:
    for line in f:
        print(d.decompress(line))

time:

# time ./dump.zlib.py &> /dev/null

real    1m4.389s
user    1m3.440s
sys 0m0.410s

finally some proper values with python !!!

Specs

All the running tests occurred to this machine:

4 x Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-3220 CPU @ 3.30GHz
8G RAM

Conclusions

Ok, I Know !

The shell-pipe approach of using gzip for opening the compressed file, is not fair to all the above code snippets.
But ... who cares ?

I need something that run fast as hell and does smart things on those data.

Get in touch

As I am not a developer, I know that you people know how to do these things even better!

So I would love to hear any suggestions or even criticism on the above examples.

I will update/report everything that will pass the "I think I know what this code do" rule and ... be gently with me ;)

PLZ use my email address: evaggelos [ _at_ ] balaskas [ _dot_ ] gr

to send me any suggestions

Thanks !