Performance of the bit package

A performance example

Before we measure performance of the main functionality of the package, note that something simple as ‘(a:b)[-i]’ can and has been accelerated in this package:

a <- 1L
b <- 1e7L
i <- sample(a:b, 1e3)
x <- c(
  R = median(microbenchmark((a:b)[-i], times=times)$time),
  bit = median(microbenchmark(bit_rangediff(c(a, b), i), times=times)$time),
  merge = median(microbenchmark(merge_rangediff(c(a, b), bit_sort(i)), times=times)$time)
)
knitr::kable(as.data.frame(as.list(x / x["R"] * 100)), caption="% of time relative to R", digits=1)

The vignette is compiled with the following performance settings: 5 replications with domain size small 1000 and big 10^{6}, sample size small 1000 and big 10^{6}.

Boolean data types

“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” “Il semble que la perfection soit atteinte non quand il n’y a plus rien à ajouter, mais quand il n’y a plus rien à retrancher” (Antoine de St. Exupery, Terre des Hommes (Gallimard, 1939), p. 60.)

We compare memory consumption (n=1e+06) and runtime (median of 5 replications) of the different booltypes for the following filter scenarios:

knitr::kable(
  data.frame(
    coin="random 50%",
    often="random 99%",
    rare="random 1%",
    chunk="contiguous chunk of 5%"
  ),
  caption="selection characteristic"
)

# nolint end: strings_as_factors_linter.

There are substantial savings in skewed filter situations:

% size and execution time for bit (b) and bitwhich (w) relative to logical (R) in the ‘rare’ scenario

% size and execution time for bit (b) and bitwhich (w) relative to logical (R) in the ‘often’ scenario

Even in non-skewed situations the new booltypes are competitive:

% size and execution time for bit (b) and bitwhich (w) relative to logical (R) in the ‘coin’ scenario

Detailed tables follow.

Fast methods for integer set operations

“The space-efficient structure of bitmaps dramatically reduced the run time of sorting” (Jon Bently, Programming Pearls, Cracking the oyster, p. 7)

Execution time for R (R) and bit (b)

Execution time for R, bit and merge relative to most expensive R in ‘unsorted bigbig’ scenario

Execution time for R, bit and merge in ‘sorted bigbig’ scenario