On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 6:54 PM, Wolfgang Schuster < schuster.wolfgang@googlemail.com> wrote:

Am 23.02.2009 um 18:16 schrieb Alan Stone:

- does using \doifundefined{myMacro}{...} shorten tex runs/compile time ?

...

In which way?

As I don't know/understand what happens between (Lua)TeX runs, to keep macro definitions in memory. - what are the features to avoid for shortest compile times ?

Depends on your document and what do you want.

My question was intended in a generic way, aka if you use - these features ... expect longer or significant longer compile times, or - these features ... generate the longest compile times.

To give you a better answer speak in complete sentences.

Wolfgang

On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 9:26 PM, Alan Stone wrote:

On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 8:57 PM, Alan Stone wrote:

...

On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 6:54 PM, Wolfgang Schuster wrote:

...

Am 23.02.2009 um 18:16 schrieb Alan Stone:

...

- does using \doifundefined{myMacro}{...} shorten tex runs/compile time ?

In which way?

As I don't know/understand what happens between (Lua)TeX runs, to keep macro definitions in memory.

Correction: to avoid spending time redefining macros in case their definitions are kept in memory between Lua(TeX) runs.

$>context test.tex is roughly finish :=false while not(finish): run_luatex_with_context_format_on_file(test.tex) where run_luatex_with_context_format_on_file(filename) is my imaginary name that run luatex (for example on my system luatex --fmt="/opt/luatex/minimals/tex/texmf-cache/luatex-cache/context/4330c3ed7721ca11f9d108c60c58eea4/formats/cont-en" --lua="/opt/luatex/minimals/tex/texmf-cache/luatex-cache/context/4330c3ed7721ca11f9d108c60c58eea4/formats/cont-en.lua" "./test.tex" ) but also check conditions to that change finish to true and possible write intermediate files. So,as far I know, each run is a new process: there is no a master process that spawns new children , and no definitions are kept in memory between Lua(TeX) runs. -- luigi

Am 23.02.2009 um 20:57 schrieb Alan Stone:

...

- does using \doifundefined{myMacro}{...} shorten tex runs/compile time ?

In which way?

As I don't know/understand what happens between (Lua)TeX runs, to keep macro definitions in memory.

The only way to use information from a previous run is to use the auxiliary files or buffers. Macros are defined at each run again but you shouldn't care here about the performance unless you use a very big private module.

- what are the features to avoid for shortest compile times ?

...

Depends on your document and what do you want.

My question was intended in a generic way, aka if you use

- these features ... expect longer or significant longer compile times, or - these features ... generate the longest compile times.

As Taco mentioned, try to avoid \switchtobodyfont and use \definedfont or \definefont instead. You can also gain a few (micro)seconds when you run TeX in batchmode (no terminal messages). Natural Tables are quite slow and it's sometimes worth to take a look if you can use table or tabulate. Wolfgang

Mohamed Bana wrote:

maybe someone should research LuaJIT; http://luajit.org/

lua vs luajit; http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32q/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=luajit&lang2=lua&box=1

thoughts?

i wonder if it makes much of a difference in the way we use lua; most time is currently spent on function calls and tex-lua interfacing and if i'm right jit does not help much there long ago i did some tests and jut is indeed impressive but for larger functions (and we have many of them) you need to tune parameters in order to gain something once luatex is finished we can look into it again but keep in mind that jit is only available for someplatforms/architectures (btw i do lots if speed tests when writing lua code for mkiv, so often the code is already rather optimized) Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------