C++ Container Testing

A simple program that runs a series of tests on C++ standard containers. The tests are not designed to be rigorous but rather simple experimentation of the relative performance of C++ containers.

Contents

• C++ Container Testing
  • Contents
  • Tests
  • Running Tests
    • Listing Tests
    • Selecting Tests
  • Plot Results
  • Acknowledgments

Tests

The tests include:

• Push Back
• Push Front
• Linear Search
• Random Insert w/ Linear Search
• Random Erase
• Random Remove + Erase
• Destruction
• Sort
• Random Sorted Insert

The results of the tests are store in the data/ directory. Graphs of the data are stored in the imgs/ directory.

Currently, only the following containers are tested.

• std::list
• std::deque
• std::vector
• Preallocated std::vector

Currently, only the following kinds of element types are tested with.

• Trivial [Sized Types]
  • 8 bytes
  • 64 bytes
  • 128 bytes
  • 1024 bytes
  • 4096 bytes
• Non Trivial and Movable
• Non Trivial, Movable and noexcept
• Non Trivial and Non Movable
• Non Trivial and Expensive to Copy and Move [32 bytes]

Running Tests

To run the tests simply run the following command in the root of the project. The results are stored as *.csv in the data/ directory. This directory is split first by the test type and then the sized element used for that test.

cmake --preset=<linux|windows|macos>
cmake --build --preset=<linux|windows|macos>
./build/<linux|windows|macos>/release/cxx-container-testing --test=all

Listing Tests

The available tests can be listed using the --list flag.

./build/<linux|windows|macos>/release/cxx-container-testing --list

Selecting Tests

A specific test can be run using the --test=<test-name>. Multiple tests can be selected by repeating the --test flag.

# Run only `push-back` test
./build/<linux|windows|macos>/release/cxx-container-testing --test=push-back

# Run only `push-front` and `destroy` tests
./build/<linux|windows|macos>/release/cxx-container-testing --test=push-front --test=destroy

Plot Results

To plot the results a small Go package has been included that is used to plot the results as *.svg into the imgs/ directory. The imgs/ directory mirrors the structure of the data/ directory.

go build -o bin/plotter
bin/plotter

Acknowledgments

Inspired by C++ benchmark - std::vector VS std::list VS std::deque - Baptiste Wicht