Question

I’m using Scala to measure performance of regex engine of java. The regexp below executes in around 3 seconds but yet I’m not able to measure it using System.currentTimeMillis. (the last expression returns 0)

scala> val b = System.currentTimeMillis; val v = new Regex("(x+)+y").findAllIn("x"*25); b-System.currentTimeMillis
b: Long = 1330787275629
v: scala.util.matching.Regex.MatchIterator = empty iterator
res18: Long = 0

Do you now why the last returned value is 0, and not the amount of ms that scala spend on executing the regexp?

Answer 1

The unexplained duration comes from the REPL calling toString on the iterator returned from findAllIn. This in turn calls Regex.MatchIterator#hasNext, which triggers the search.

scala> def time[A](a: => A) = {
     |   val now = System.nanoTime
     |   val result = a
     |   val micros = (System.nanoTime - now) / 1000
     |   println("%d microseconds".format(micros))
     |   result
     | }
time: [A](a: => A)A

scala> :power
** Power User mode enabled - BEEP WHIR GYVE **
** :phase has been set to 'typer'.          **
** scala.tools.nsc._ has been imported      **
** global._, definitions._ also imported    **
** Try  :help, :vals, power.<tab>           **

scala> :wrap time
Set wrapper to 'time'

scala> new Regex("(x+)+y").findAllIn("x"*25).toString
3000737 microseconds
res19: String = empty iterator

scala> {new Regex("(x+)+y").findAllIn("x"*25); 0}
582 microseconds
res20: Int = 0