= libpsyc Performance Benchmarks =

In this document we present the results of performance benchmarks
of libpsyc compared with libjson-glib and libxml2.

== Procedure ==

We'll use typical messages from the XMPP ("stanzas" in Jabber
lingo) and compare them with equivalent PSYC packets and
JSON encodings.

In some cases we will additionally compare PSYC packets to
a more efficient XML encoding based on PSYC methods, to have
a more accurate comparison of the actual PSYC and XML
syntaxes, rather than the protocol structures of PSYC and XMPP.

== Caveats ==

In every case we'll compare performance of parsing and re-rendering
these messages, but consider also that the applicative processing
of an XML DOM tree is more complicated than just accessing
certain elements in a JSON data structure or PSYC variable
mapping.

For a speed check in real world conditions which also consider the
complexity of processing incoming messages we should compare
the performance of a chat client using the two protocols,
for instance by using libpurple with XMPP and PSYC accounts.
To this purpose we first need to integrate libpsyc into libpurple.

== The Benchmarks ==

=== A presence packet ===

Since presence packets are by far the dominant messaging content
in the XMPP network, we'll start with one of them.

<pre>
...
</pre>

and here's the same information in a JSON rendition:

<pre>
...
</pre>

=== An average chat message ===
=== A social network activity ===
=== A message with JSON-unfriendly characters ===
=== A message with XML-unfriendly characters ===
=== A packet containing a JPEG photograph ===