If you’re into parsing XML or HTML with ruby then chances are you’re familiar with the various gems out there for getting the job done.  Lately, there have been a lot of things flying around about which is the fastest and to settle it, Aaron Patterson (author of Nokogiri and Mechanize) wrote a test suite.

After it’s release, RubyInside posted about how the tests showed how fast Nokogiri was compared to Hpricot in this article here: Ruby XML Performance Shootout: Nokogiri vs LibXML vs Hpricot vs REXML.  Later in the day, I saw Why’s posting about the release of Hpricot here: hpricot 0.7 and decided to modify Aaron’s tests to use Hpricot.XML and here are the results:

Tests were run at N=5 to get a clearer picture of the differences between the various gems.  At N=2, tests were pretty close, which indicated that a larger sample was needed.

test_IO_parsing(XmlTruth::DOM::XML::LargeDocumentParsingTest) N=5
user     system      total        real   kBps
null          0.690000   0.070000   0.760000 (  0.768641) 46343.68
nokogiri      2.790000   0.130000   2.920000 (  3.015303) 11813.62
libxml-ruby   2.970000   0.140000   3.110000 (  3.130175) 11380.08
hpricot      13.660000   0.370000  14.030000 ( 14.088780) 2528.37
.
test_in_memory_parsing(XmlTruth::DOM::XML::LargeDocumentParsingTest) N=5
user     system      total        real   kBps
null          1.240000   0.010000   1.250000 (  1.260841) 28252.30
nokogiri      4.360000   0.060000   4.420000 (  4.444468) 8014.83
libxml-ruby   4.570000   0.050000   4.620000 (  4.641338) 7674.87
hpricot      13.750000   0.210000  13.960000 ( 14.045647) 2536.13
.
test_simple_xpath(XmlTruth::DOM::XML::LargeDocumentXPathSearchTest) N=5
user     system      total        real   kBps
nokogiri     44.430000   0.300000  44.730000 ( 44.972003) 792.09
libxml-ruby  40.950000   0.210000  41.160000 ( 41.300780) 862.49
hpricot      18.410000   0.090000  18.500000 ( 18.540239) 1921.32
.
test_IO_parsing(XmlTruth::DOM::XML::SmallDocumentParsingTest) N=1944
user     system      total        real   kBps
null          8.150000   0.130000   8.280000 (  8.326070) 4278.17
nokogiri     17.850000   0.100000  17.950000 ( 17.950534) 1984.36
libxml-ruby  19.010000   0.260000  19.270000 ( 19.370769) 1838.87
hpricot      25.320000   0.460000  25.780000 ( 25.827516) 1379.16
.
test_in_memory_parsing(XmlTruth::DOM::XML::SmallDocumentParsingTest) N=1944
user     system      total        real   kBps
null          3.960000   0.030000   3.990000 (  4.005522) 8892.82
nokogiri     18.140000   0.200000  18.340000 ( 18.403396) 1935.53
libxml-ruby  19.760000   0.230000  19.990000 ( 19.999905) 1781.03
hpricot      15.980000   0.150000  16.130000 ( 16.133157) 2207.90
.
Finished in 426.233021 seconds.

5 tests, 0 assertions, 0 failures, 0 errors

You can find my fork of the test suite on github here: Patrick Tulskie’s Fork of XMLTruth

From this small sample of tests, it appears as though Nokogiri and libxml-ruby are similar in performance for most items. This makes sense though since Nokogiri utilizes the native libxml of the current operating environment. Nokogiri clearly excels at parsing larger documents while Hpricot appears to handle smaller, in-memory documents rather quickly.

In real-world scenarios, one might expect Nokogiri to be the ideal solution to parsing large XML or HTML documents from the disk into a database, whereas Hpricot might be a more ideal gem for use in a web crawler where it is rare that a page’s DOM is more than a 1MB.

Please post any other thoughts you might have in the comments.

If you haven’t read the previous posting about this nonsense then you should probably do so.  Basically a Chinese company contacted me with some nonsense about someone wanting to buy my name in China and wanted to know if I would allow this.  I said no, and they started trying to convince me to register the names with them… and then this happened…

So I recieved this response back from Carol:

Dear Patrick,

Each company has their own idea,All we can do is to respect your decision.Do you also give up the “Internet brand name” ?Internet brand name is the extension of trademark and brand in the internet world. It decides the stability and activity of keyword in the world of internet.it affect the rank of this keyword in google search engine.After the successful registration, Government will award an electronic certificate, which will prove the validity of using this keyword in the internet.

Best Regards

Carol

At this point I think one should notice that her typing is getting increasingly worse and worse.  Completely unacceptable for someone who audits stuff, and is employed by an organization that is sort of in partnership with the government.  Something stunk.  I decided to look up this internet keyword nonsense and determined it’s a Chinese internet only sort of thing.  It’s similar to AOL’s keyword stuff that they had, except you can buy these and often at a huge premium.  Now if some company wants to buy it and hold onto it at their expense then go ahead.  If you really want to find me you can search for me on the internet and I really don’t need a keyword to help with that.

With my new found knowledge, I decided to play dumb and sent this as a response:

Hello Carol,

I do not give up the “Internet Brand Name.” What is the Government you speak of? Is this the Chinese government or is this something else? It is impossible for me to give up the name “Patrick Tulskie” since it is the name given to me at birth. I can’t suddenly call myself by something else.
Patrick Tulskie
http://www.PatrickTulskie.com

For the sake of space time, I’ll tell you that a few short emails were exchanged where she basically said if I want to protect myself then I’d better purchase this internet keyword.  At this point her typing skills have blown my brain right out the top of my skull with horror.  Not a good way to convince me to seperate from my money.

After I asked her how to protect myself, she replied with this:

Dear Patrick,

Attached dispute application form, pls check.Hope you could fill in it prudently. In order to arrange the work better, you’d better fill in the form and return to us in time.I can always help you in the whole process of the registration.

Following is the procedures:
1. We send the dispute application form to you.
2. You fill in the dispute application form and return it via email (scaned) or fax.
3. We will dispute their application and protect Internet brand name for your company.
4. We’ll send the invoice of payment to you.
5. We will register this Internet brand name after getting the payment proof and award you the electronic certificate.

If you have any questions, contact me freely.

Best Regards

The form that was attached had another company’s name entered into it already and it had some random holding company’s header on it.  It was a radically different company than had even been mentioned in conversation.  Since she basically blew her cover as a reputable company that was trying to help me protect myself from a Chinese internet STD, I decided it was time to get even more silly serious.

Hello Carol,

As I’m sure you well know it’s the 3rd of July here in the US and it’s the day before independence day so most people are on vacation. I cannot send you the dispute form right now since my secretary is on vacation and will not be back until Monday. I would fill it out myself, but I have a disorder where I can only write backwards. If you can read backwards handwriting then I will do it for you, but I don’t think that’s appropriate for an official document.

I do have a question though – how much is it going to cost to buy the name that my parent’s freely gave to me when I was born? Many would regard me as a great person, and I am big in every way, but I do not think my name has significant monetary value to anyone else. It is after all my name. I mean how would you feel if your name was “Carol Burger” and some company comes along and tries to buy the name “Carol Burger” when that is your name that your parents gave to you when you were born? I’m pretty sure you’d do a barrel roll.
Patrick Tulskie
http://www.PatrickTulskie.com

And I never got a response, despite all of my questions.  As of today I see that all of the domains she mentioned in the first email have yet to be taken.  If someone wants to buy them, have at it.  I’m not sure what good the name Patrick Tulskie will be to you, but if you really want them then have at it.

There IS a chance none of the people at this phoney company have seen my blog posts about them and so I might try sending in the form, written in the appropriate fashion just to see what happens.  Comment or hit me on Twitter if you think I should do it.

I know.  I know.  There are plenty of questions going through your head right now upon reading the title of this… How could this possibly happen?  Why do they want some Irish/Polish mixed name?  Don’t they have enough to do with the Olympics this year?  How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie pop?

Well, I’m as bewildered as you are.  Let me start at the beginning since it was only this morning and I am pretty sure I can re-count it.

I woke up to my blackberry going off next to me for an emergency email.  No one sends me emergency emails, with the exception of the Chinese government, so naturally I had a look see.  I skimmed it quickly and determined it could wait until morning because they did not say anything about me needing to wake up immediately and get dressed.

Dear principal,

We are a domain name registration service company in asia,which mainly deal with international company’s in Asia.We have something important need to confirm with you company.On the July 01th, 2008, we received an application formally.One company named “Makerc International Holdings Ltd” wanted to register following domain names:
patricktulskie.asia
patricktulskie.cn
patricktulskie.com.cn
patricktulskie.hk
patricktulskie.info
patricktulskie.net
patricktulskie.net.cn
patricktulskie.org.cn
patricktulskie.tw
and Internet brand name:
Patricktulskie
through our body.
During our auditing procedure we find out that the alleged “Makerc International Holdings Ltd” has no trade mark, Intellectual property, nor patent even similar to that word. we found that the keywords and domain names applied for registration are as same as your company’s name and trademark. one point need you to confirm: whether this alleged “Makerc International Holdings Ltd” is your business partner or distributor in ASIA. if so, we will complete their registration. These days we are dealing with it.
If you are not in charge of this please transfer this email to appropriate dept.In order to deal with this issue better,please let someone who is responsible for trademark or domain name contact me as soon as possible.

Best Regards,

Carol
Auditing Department
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hong Kong Office:
Tel: 00852 8122 6293 (Direct)
Tel: 00852 3059 3057 (Office)
Fax: 00852 3059 3080

Email: Carol@skasia.hk.cn
Web: http://www.skholdingscompanyltd.asia

Confidentiality Notice. This is a letter for confirmation. If the mentioned third party is your business partner or distributor in ASIA please DO NOT reply. We will automatically confirm application from your business partner after this audit procedure. we have to notify you, and our registration organization are not responsible for any dispute questions about trade mark, intellectual property nor patent after they succeed in registration. hope you can understand. thank you.

My initial thoughts were “Hot damn, I’m a principal now.”  Then I went to GoDaddy and bought PatrickTulskie.org and PatrickTulskie.net.  I sat back in my chair and thought to myself “Damn you’re slick aren’t you Patrick?  Yeah you are.”

At this point you probably think it’s unfair that I say the Chinese government was responsible for this but it’s more fun to blame them for it.  Besides, at a later point I was lead to believe that this Carol person was a representative for the Chinese government.  I did not yet realize what they were trying to do, so I replied with this:

Carol,

Thank you for notifying me of this. PatrickTulskie is my name and my business name. Please do not permit this to go through as it would inflict damage on my reputation, and business in addition to confusion for people who view those pages. I’ve had other companies attempt to register my name as domains in an attempt to do “domain squatting” and advertising under my name without my consent.

They are not my business partner nor are they my distributor in Asia. Furthermore, to my knowledge I am the only Patrick Tulskie in the entire world. Please do not permit this transaction. Thank you very much Carol.

Patrick Tulskie
http://www.PatrickTulskie.com

Almost immediately I got a response back that said:

Dear Patrick,

Thanks for your prompt reply.We are a government authorized domain registration organization,During the auditing process, we have found that Makerc International Holdings Ltd is not the owner of “patricktulskie”.We also do not know that company’s detail information,So we ask you to confirm the relationship between you and that company.

If you have no relationship with them. According to our working experience, there are two possibilities:1.Makerc International Holdings Ltd is a domain name investment company, they want to register these names before you and sell back to you to gain profits.2.Makerc International Holdings Ltd is consigned by your competitor to register, let your customers feel confusion.

You know domain name takes open registration, this is international domain name registration principle. So Makerc International Holdings Ltd has right to register it.I think you must know some cases about the domain names grabbed by the third party,we also won’t want to see things happen like this.

As the owner of “patricktulskie”,you will get the priority to register these domain names and keyword.If you think these domian names are important for your company.we can send you a dispute application form and help you to register these domains within dispute period.This is the only way to prevent domain name grab. But If you don’t think their application will affect your company, you can give up.Each company has their own idea,Hope you can give me your decision ASAP.so that we can handle the next step.

Best Regards

Carol

Ah!  So I see!  She’s from the government and she’s looking out for my best interest!  How sweet of her and the Chinese government to be looking out for my ass.  Well, at this point I just kinda want her to go away because it was my last work day of the week and I wanted to get some real work done, so I sent her this:

Hello Carol,

I have no relationship with that company. I have already registered PatrickTulskie.net and PatrickTulskie.org in addition to my flagship PatrickTulskie.com.

They can go ahead and buy whatever is left out there. I am not interested in them and I do not feel that they would be a threat to my business.

Thank you for the notification.
Patrick Tulskie
http://www.PatrickTulskie.com

…and I thought that would be sufficient enough to make her go away.  Alas, no I was wrong.  I didn’t realize she still needed to fill her quota for the month and she wasn’t going to let me go yet.

I’m tired now though and I believe I’ll have to continue the saga tomorrow.  I have more emails to/from her that I need to sift through and pick apart.  Check back soon for the continuation.