Long time Rails developer Jesse Storimer (of Shopify) recently blogged about the efficiency of the new (since 3.0) `rails` command versus using plain old `./script/rails`. You can find his piece here: [The rails command and exec(2)](http://jstorimer.com/2011/12/20/rails-and-exec.html). You should definitely read that before moving on.
So Jesse’s premise is that you should consider using `./script/rails` instead of the `rails` command because of the overhead involved with the rails script and exec. When I read this, I was skeptical. Just how much overhead can there be in a simple wrapper like the rails script? Why ask rhetorical questions when we can know for sure!?
I performed this testing in our staging environment:
* Linode 512 instance running Debian 6.0
* Rails 3.1.1
* Ruby 1.9.3-p0
* Bundler 1.0.21
* Gems in bundle: 68
Since this is a capistrano deployed environment, we rely on bundler, so I wasn’t able to test the bare `rails` wrapper. Maybe another time.
I ran two sets of tests. First, I figured I’d run a test against `rails runner` because it wasn’t immediately obvious to me how I’d execute `rails console` using the GNU `time` utility. Once the console is open, the REPL interface would sit there waiting on me and be included in the `time` results. Easy fix. I simply added a call to `exit` to my ~/.irbrc file causing irb to execute immediately and reliably without waiting on a slow human. Once I figured out how I’d test the console, I wired up my tests.
TL;DR – Avoiding the wrapper `bundle exec rails` saves you about 1 second for every execution of `console` or `runner`. Meh. Although, a full second can seem much longer when you’re reloading your console 5 times in a row because of some stupid error you keep making.
Read on to see the methodology and analysis.
**Files**
Exec: count gems (no file, just executed at a prompt)
# Be sure to subtract 1 for the header line!
bundle show | wc -l
File: test_script
puts “Runners gon’ run!”
File: ~/.irbrc
# Be sure to remove this later or you’ll be reeeeeally confused
exit
File: bench_runner.sh
#!/usr/bin/env bash
echo “Runner tests: 4 times each”
echo
echo “cmd: bundle exec rails runner -e staging test_script”
time bundle exec rails runner -e staging test_script
time bundle exec rails runner -e staging test_script
time bundle exec rails runner -e staging test_script
time bundle exec rails runner -e staging test_script
echo
echo “cmd: ./script/rails runner -e staging test_script”
time ./script/rails runner -e staging test_script
time ./script/rails runner -e staging test_script
time ./script/rails runner -e staging test_script
time ./script/rails runner -e staging test_script
File: bench_console.sh
#!/usr/bin/env bash
echo “Console tests: 4 times each”
echo
echo “cmd: bundle exec rails console staging”
time bundle exec rails console staging
time bundle exec rails console staging
time bundle exec rails console staging
time bundle exec rails console staging
echo
echo “cmd: ./script/rails console staging”
time ./script/rails console staging
time ./script/rails console staging
time ./script/rails console staging
time ./script/rails console staging
**Test Results**
Let’s have a look at the results for `runner`:
Runner tests: 4 times each
cmd: bundle exec rails runner -e staging test_script
Runners gon’ run!
real 0m9.949s
user 0m9.190s
sys 0m0.715s
Runners gon’ run!
real 0m9.519s
user 0m8.753s
sys 0m0.724s
Runners gon’ run!
real 0m9.652s
user 0m8.898s
sys 0m0.712s
Runners gon’ run!
real 0m9.898s
user 0m9.105s
sys 0m0.747s
cmd: ./script/rails runner -e staging test_script
Runners gon’ run!
real 0m8.765s
user 0m8.101s
sys 0m0.621s
Runners gon’ run!
real 0m8.417s
user 0m7.731s
sys 0m0.642s
Runners gon’ run!
real 0m8.991s
user 0m8.290s
sys 0m0.657s
Runners gon’ run!
real 0m8.530s
user 0m7.828s
sys 0m0.658s
And now `console`:
Console tests: 4 times each
cmd: bundle exec rails console staging
Loading staging environment (Rails 3.1.1)
real 0m9.712s
user 0m8.885s
sys 0m0.782s
Loading staging environment (Rails 3.1.1)
real 0m9.725s
user 0m8.905s
sys 0m0.774s
Loading staging environment (Rails 3.1.1)
real 0m9.661s
user 0m8.861s
sys 0m0.754s
Loading staging environment (Rails 3.1.1)
real 0m9.742s
user 0m9.024s
sys 0m0.675s
cmd: ./script/rails console staging
Loading staging environment (Rails 3.1.1)
real 0m8.617s
user 0m7.978s
sys 0m0.596s
Loading staging environment (Rails 3.1.1)
real 0m9.168s
user 0m8.385s
sys 0m0.738s
Loading staging environment (Rails 3.1.1)
real 0m8.589s
user 0m7.868s
sys 0m0.677s
Loading staging environment (Rails 3.1.1)
real 0m8.573s
user 0m7.846s
sys 0m0.684s
**Analysis**
Time to do the math. Since we’re interested in the time we have to wait before we can do more work, we’ll look at the real field results (using Ruby, of course).
Runner:
# average times for bundle exec rails runner
([9.949, 9.519, 9.652, 9.898].reduce(:+).to_d / 4).to_s
# average times for ./script/rails runner
([8.765, 8.417, 8.991, 8.530].reduce(:+).to_d / 4).to_s
Using `bundle exec rails runner`: 9.7545s avg
Using `./script/rails runner`: 8.67575s avg
Result: avoiding `bundle exec rails` for `runner` saves you an average of 1.07875 seconds every time you execute runner.
Console:
# average times for bundle exec rails console
([9.712, 9.725, 9.661, 9.742].reduce(:+).to_d / 4).to_s
# average times for ./script/rails console
([8.617, 9.168, 8.589, 8.573].reduce(:+).to_d / 4).to_s
Using `bundle exec rails console`: 9.71s avg
Using `./script/rails console`: 8.73675s avg
Result: avoiding `bundle exec rails` for `console` saves you an average of 0.97325 seconds every time you boot a console.