# Test::Unit speed **URL:** \ **Category:** ruby-talk\ **Created:** [9 November 2004 14:06 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/test-unit-speed/14686 "2004-11-09T14:06:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Francis\_Hwang1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecae2f/32.png) [@Francis\_Hwang1](https://rubytalk.org/u/Francis_Hwang1)\ **Post date:** [9 November 2004 14:06 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/test-unit-speed/14686/1 "2004-11-09T14:06:17Z")
Okay, this is sort of embarrassing, but for some time now I've been using the (deprecated) RubyUnit instead of Test::Unit. Since RubyConf I've been using Test::Unit for newer projects, and I'm definitely happy with all the various improvements. But now I'm trying to switch over a pre-existing private project to Test::Unit, and it seems to run a lot slower than RubyUnit. I've got about 350 unit tests, which used to run in about a minute in RubyUnit. But now when I try to run them in Test::Unit, they won't even complete. Individual tests run fine, but everything seems like it's a lot slower. Has anybody else encountered this problem? Any particular quirks or workarounds I should be aware of? Thanks in advance. F. ---
**Author:** ![James\_Edward\_Gray\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ea5d25/32.png) [@James\_Edward\_Gray\_II](https://rubytalk.org/u/James_Edward_Gray_II)\ **Post date:** [9 November 2004 14:14 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/test-unit-speed/14686/2 "2004-11-09T14:14:50Z")
In my testing of quiz submissions for Regex.build(), I ran into some nasty slowdowns with Test::Unit. I was running a LOT of tests, but it was still quite a bit slower than it needed to be. James Edward Gray II > **···** > > On Nov 9, 2004, at 8:06 AM, Francis Hwang wrote: > > > Has anybody else encountered this problem? Any particular quirks or workarounds I should be aware of? Thanks in advance. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Hwang1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecae2f/32.png) [@Francis\_Hwang1](https://rubytalk.org/u/Francis_Hwang1)\ **Post date:** [10 November 2004 01:28 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/test-unit-speed/14686/3 "2004-11-10T01:28:36Z")
Let me ask more specifically: Is anybody out there using Test::Unit to run hundreds of tests? If you are, and have any tips as to how I can manage the speed issue, your tips would be much much appreciated. F. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_Sutherland1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Tim\_Sutherland1](https://rubytalk.org/u/Tim_Sutherland1)\ **Post date:** [10 November 2004 05:08 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/test-unit-speed/14686/4 "2004-11-10T05:08:33Z")
In article \<368A22C4-3259-11D9-90EE-000A95DBF456@fhwang.net\>, Francis Hwang wrote: > Okay, this is sort of embarrassing, but for some time now I've been > using the (deprecated) RubyUnit instead of Test::Unit. Since RubyConf > I've been using Test::Unit for newer projects, and I'm definitely happy > with all the various improvements. > > But now I'm trying to switch over a pre-existing private project to > Test::Unit, and it seems to run a lot slower than RubyUnit. I've got > about 350 unit tests, which used to run in about a minute in RubyUnit. > But now when I try to run them in Test::Unit, they won't even complete. > Individual tests run fine, but everything seems like it's a lot slower. > > Has anybody else encountered this problem? Any particular quirks or > workarounds I should be aware of? Thanks in advance. I never used RubyUnit, but the setup and teardown methods are called once per test-case. Perhaps you're expecting that they're only called once per TestCase class. ---
**Author:** ![Nathaniel\_Talbott1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a4c791/32.png) [@Nathaniel\_Talbott1](https://rubytalk.org/u/Nathaniel_Talbott1)\ **Post date:** [10 November 2004 01:38 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/test-unit-speed/14686/5 "2004-11-10T01:38:13Z")
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**Author:** ![Nathaniel\_Talbott1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a4c791/32.png) [@Nathaniel\_Talbott1](https://rubytalk.org/u/Nathaniel_Talbott1)\ **Post date:** [10 November 2004 01:38 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/test-unit-speed/14686/6 "2004-11-10T01:38:33Z")
Francis, I've certainly had test suites with hundreds of tests, and never seemed to have problems. Have you been able to run a profiler on it? I'd be more than willing to apply patches, especially if they don't affect the API. Nathaniel Terralien, Inc. \<:((\>\< > **···** > > On Nov 9, 2004, at 20:28, Francis Hwang wrote: > > > Let me ask more specifically: Is anybody out there using Test::Unit to run hundreds of tests? If you are, and have any tips as to how I can manage the speed issue, your tips would be much much appreciated. ---
**Author:** ![Eric\_Hodel1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9adbd/32.png) [@Eric\_Hodel1](https://rubytalk.org/u/Eric_Hodel1)\ **Post date:** [10 November 2004 18:29 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/test-unit-speed/14686/7 "2004-11-10T18:29:14Z")
On a lowly Pentium 233, I run 303 tests from Ruby2C in 12 seconds. The time to run the test suite starting from 10s of tests seems to have grown linearly. On a decent box (PowerBook) the tests can all run in 1-2 seconds. $ wc -l test\_\* | grep total      3793 total $ time ./test\_all.rb Loaded suite ./test\_all Started ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Finished in 12.027582 seconds. 303 tests, 481 assertions, 0 failures, 0 errors real 0m13.810s user 0m12.445s sys 0m0.168s > **···** > > On Nov 9, 2004, at 5:28 PM, Francis Hwang wrote: > > > Let me ask more specifically: Is anybody out there using Test::Unit to run hundreds of tests? If you are, and have any tips as to how I can manage the speed issue, your tips would be much much appreciated. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Hwang1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecae2f/32.png) [@Francis\_Hwang1](https://rubytalk.org/u/Francis_Hwang1)\ **Post date:** [10 November 2004 01:42 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/test-unit-speed/14686/8 "2004-11-10T01:42:58Z")
Hi Nathaniel, I'll start playing around with a few of the tests, and profiling them. I just wanted to check first if others were trying to test on this scale before I bothered. It's quite possible I'm just doing something braindead. I'll poke around and let you know what I find. F. > **···** > > On Nov 9, 2004, at 8:38 PM, Nathaniel Talbott wrote: > > > On Nov 9, 2004, at 20:28, Francis Hwang wrote: > > > > > Let me ask more specifically: Is anybody out there using Test::Unit to run hundreds of tests? If you are, and have any tips as to how I can manage the speed issue, your tips would be much much appreciated. > > > > Francis, > > > > I've certainly had test suites with hundreds of tests, and never seemed to have problems. Have you been able to run a profiler on it? I'd be more than willing to apply patches, especially if they don't affect the API. > > > > Nathaniel > > Terralien, Inc. > > > > \<:((\>\< ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Hwang1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecae2f/32.png) [@Francis\_Hwang1](https://rubytalk.org/u/Francis_Hwang1)\ **Post date:** [13 December 2004 03:16 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/test-unit-speed/14686/9 "2004-12-13T03:16:20Z")
Just wanted to follow up on this, a month later: The speed issues I thought were coming from Test::Unit was actually coming from a lot of different issues relating to switching to Ruby 1.8.2 and using certain libs inefficiently. Test::Unit doesn't seem to be causing any problems, and it's definitely got a lot of nice features that make organizing my test cases easier. Thanks, Nathaniel! One question I haven't been able to resolve: Is there a way to use multiple file args or fileglobs to have more than one test-case file loaded in at the command line? When I do something like ruby test/article/ArticleIndexElement.rb test/article/ArticleSummary.rb or just ruby test/article/\*.rb then Test::Unit seems to just load in the first TestCase and drop everything else. > **···** > > On Nov 9, 2004, at 8:38 PM, Nathaniel Talbott wrote: > > > On Nov 9, 2004, at 20:28, Francis Hwang wrote: > > > > > Let me ask more specifically: Is anybody out there using Test::Unit to run hundreds of tests? If you are, and have any tips as to how I can manage the speed issue, your tips would be much much appreciated. > > > > Francis, > > > > I've certainly had test suites with hundreds of tests, and never seemed to have problems. Have you been able to run a profiler on it? I'd be more than willing to apply patches, especially if they don't affect the API. > > > > Nathaniel > > Terralien, Inc. > > > > \<:((\>\< > > Francis Hwang > > > **[fhwang - Overview](https://github.com/fhwang/)** > > > > fhwang has 66 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub.