[swift] Swift Beta performance: sorting arrays

I decided to take a look at this for fun, and here are the timings that I get:

Swift 4.0.2           :   0.83s (0.74s with `-Ounchecked`)
C++ (Apple LLVM 8.0.0):   0.74s

Swift

// Swift 4.0 code
import Foundation

func doTest() -> Void {
    let arraySize = 10000000
    var randomNumbers = [UInt32]()

    for _ in 0..<arraySize {
        randomNumbers.append(arc4random_uniform(UInt32(arraySize)))
    }

    let start = Date()
    randomNumbers.sort()
    let end = Date()

    print(randomNumbers[0])
    print("Elapsed time: \(end.timeIntervalSince(start))")
}

doTest()

Results:

Swift 1.1

xcrun swiftc --version
Swift version 1.1 (swift-600.0.54.20)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin14.0.0

xcrun swiftc -O SwiftSort.swift
./SwiftSort     
Elapsed time: 1.02204304933548

Swift 1.2

xcrun swiftc --version
Apple Swift version 1.2 (swiftlang-602.0.49.6 clang-602.0.49)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin14.3.0

xcrun -sdk macosx swiftc -O SwiftSort.swift
./SwiftSort     
Elapsed time: 0.738763988018036

Swift 2.0

xcrun swiftc --version
Apple Swift version 2.0 (swiftlang-700.0.59 clang-700.0.72)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin15.0.0

xcrun -sdk macosx swiftc -O SwiftSort.swift
./SwiftSort     
Elapsed time: 0.767306983470917

It seems to be the same performance if I compile with -Ounchecked.

Swift 3.0

xcrun swiftc --version
Apple Swift version 3.0 (swiftlang-800.0.46.2 clang-800.0.38)
Target: x86_64-apple-macosx10.9

xcrun -sdk macosx swiftc -O SwiftSort.swift
./SwiftSort     
Elapsed time: 0.939633965492249

xcrun -sdk macosx swiftc -Ounchecked SwiftSort.swift
./SwiftSort     
Elapsed time: 0.866258025169373

There seems to have been a performance regression from Swift 2.0 to Swift 3.0, and I'm also seeing a difference between -O and -Ounchecked for the first time.

Swift 4.0

xcrun swiftc --version
Apple Swift version 4.0.2 (swiftlang-900.0.69.2 clang-900.0.38)
Target: x86_64-apple-macosx10.9

xcrun -sdk macosx swiftc -O SwiftSort.swift
./SwiftSort     
Elapsed time: 0.834299981594086

xcrun -sdk macosx swiftc -Ounchecked SwiftSort.swift
./SwiftSort     
Elapsed time: 0.742045998573303

Swift 4 improves the performance again, while maintaining a gap between -O and -Ounchecked. -O -whole-module-optimization did not appear to make a difference.

C++

#include <chrono>
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <cstdint>
#include <stdlib.h>

using namespace std;
using namespace std::chrono;

int main(int argc, const char * argv[]) {
    const auto arraySize = 10000000;
    vector<uint32_t> randomNumbers;

    for (int i = 0; i < arraySize; ++i) {
        randomNumbers.emplace_back(arc4random_uniform(arraySize));
    }

    const auto start = high_resolution_clock::now();
    sort(begin(randomNumbers), end(randomNumbers));
    const auto end = high_resolution_clock::now();

    cout << randomNumbers[0] << "\n";
    cout << "Elapsed time: " << duration_cast<duration<double>>(end - start).count() << "\n";

    return 0;
}

Results:

Apple Clang 6.0

clang++ --version
Apple LLVM version 6.0 (clang-600.0.54) (based on LLVM 3.5svn)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin14.0.0
Thread model: posix

clang++ -O3 -std=c++11 CppSort.cpp -o CppSort
./CppSort     
Elapsed time: 0.688969

Apple Clang 6.1.0

clang++ --version
Apple LLVM version 6.1.0 (clang-602.0.49) (based on LLVM 3.6.0svn)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin14.3.0
Thread model: posix

clang++ -O3 -std=c++11 CppSort.cpp -o CppSort
./CppSort     
Elapsed time: 0.670652

Apple Clang 7.0.0

clang++ --version
Apple LLVM version 7.0.0 (clang-700.0.72)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin15.0.0
Thread model: posix

clang++ -O3 -std=c++11 CppSort.cpp -o CppSort
./CppSort     
Elapsed time: 0.690152

Apple Clang 8.0.0

clang++ --version
Apple LLVM version 8.0.0 (clang-800.0.38)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin15.6.0
Thread model: posix

clang++ -O3 -std=c++11 CppSort.cpp -o CppSort
./CppSort     
Elapsed time: 0.68253

Apple Clang 9.0.0

clang++ --version
Apple LLVM version 9.0.0 (clang-900.0.38)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin16.7.0
Thread model: posix

clang++ -O3 -std=c++11 CppSort.cpp -o CppSort
./CppSort     
Elapsed time: 0.736784

Verdict

As of the time of this writing, Swift's sort is fast, but not yet as fast as C++'s sort when compiled with -O, with the above compilers & libraries. With -Ounchecked, it appears to be as fast as C++ in Swift 4.0.2 and Apple LLVM 9.0.0.

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