Ttykuu

I'm beginning to learn about Golang and I would like to have some advice about the following program.

package main

import (
 "fmt"
 "net/http"
 "time"
)

const BenchmarkTry = 1000

type PageBenchmark struct 
 url string
 time int64 // microseconds


func execBenchmark(url string, channel chan PageBenchmark) 
 totalExecTimeChan := make(chan int64, BenchmarkTry) // set size to prevent blocked goroutine
 totalExecTime := int64(0)

 // start all the goroutines
 for i := 0; i < BenchmarkTry; i++ 
 go execHttpRequest(url, totalExecTimeChan)
 

 // catch new values from totalExecTimeChan values come from execHttpRequest()) and add it to the total
 for i := 0; i < BenchmarkTry; i++ 
 totalExecTime += <-totalExecTimeChan // waiting to get a value from one of the goroutines started in the previous for loop
 

 channel <- PageBenchmarkurl, totalExecTime / BenchmarkTry


// exec http request and attach exec time to channel
func execHttpRequest(url string, channel chan int64) 
 begin := time.Now()
 _, _ = http.Get(url)
 channel <- time.Since(begin).Nanoseconds() / 1000000 // convert to milliseconds


func main() 
 sites := [...]string

 

 pages := [...]string

 

 benchmarkChan := make(chan PageBenchmark, len(sites)*len(pages)) // set size to prevent blocked goroutine

 begin := time.Now()
 fmt.Println("Beginning !")

 // start all the goroutines
 for site := range sites 
 for page := range pages 
 go execBenchmark(sites[site]+pages[page], benchmarkChan)
 
 

 // catch new values from benchmarkChan and "print" the PageBenchmark
 for i := 0; i < len(sites)*len(pages); i++ 
 benchmark := <-benchmarkChan
 fmt.Printf("Url : %vnResponse Time : %d msnn", benchmark.url, benchmark.time)
 

 // print execution time
 fmt.Println("End.")
 fmt.Println(fmt.Sprintf("%d ms", time.Since(begin).Nanoseconds()/1000000))

Basically, I'm making HTTP requests (GET method) to multiple URLs on multiple web sites. 1000 requests by URL in this example.

For now, I just want to start some goroutines in this order:

1. Main: start a benchmark (goroutine) for each web site pages, get the average execution time and print it.




2. Page routine: start 1000 goroutines (benchmark tries), get the execution times from a channel and store the average execution time in an other channel.




3. Execute an HTTP request on the page and store the execution time in a channel.

This piece of code works but there may be things I'm missing.

• Is the execution scheduling valid?


• Is it appropriate to use defined size channels here?


• Is there a better/more effective way to achieve this task?

When running your program with the Go race detector, it found no race conditions. That's good!

Benchmark through testing

Is there a better/more effective way to achieve this task?

For benchmarking, it is recommended to use the benchmarking utilities provided by the testing package.

A lot of this code is boilerplate benchmarking code. With the testing package you can be more confident in the accuracy of your benchmarks, especially since you're benchmarking goroutines.

(I will leave switching to the testing package for you.)

Performance bias

sites[site]+pages[page]

Adding strings through the + operator is slow. This could be biasing your results (ie if you have lots of very long strings), but that also depends on how many sites you test with.

Without knowledge of your full usage, it's hard to tell.

Accuracy

time.Since(begin).Nanoseconds() / 1000000 // convert to milliseconds

I would instead use .Seconds(). Any variation on the scale of milliseconds would be meaningless. From testing with one site and two pages, I received response times of 10288 (10s) and 8128 ms (8s) and an end time of 30073 ms (30s).

Rather than converting to int64 I would keep the type as float64.

String formatting

fmt.Println("End.")
fmt.Println(fmt.Sprintf("%d ms", time.Since(begin).Nanoseconds()/1000000))

Should then be converted to:

fmt.Printf("End.nTotal time: %.0fsn", time.Since(begin).Seconds())

And, given the switch to float64

fmt.Printf("Url : %vnResponse Time : %d msnn", benchmark.url, benchmark.time)

Should instead be:

fmt.Printf("Url: %snResponse Time: %.0fsnn", benchmark.url,
 benchmark.time)

(Notice I use %s rather than %v.)

Variable naming

Variables can have shorter names, especially in shorter functions where their purpose is clear.

• 
  totalExecTimeChan becomes timeChan
  


• 
  totalExecTime becoems time
  


• 
  BenchmarkTry becomes tries
  

I would argue that the names tc and t would be equally fine for the first two.

Capitalization matters in Go. The variable BenchmarkTry and the type PageBenchmark would be exported. In this case it does not make a difference, but for larger programs and packages it would be important.

Miscellaneous

1. 
   

   This cast is not needed.

   
   
   

   totalExecTime := int64(0)
   

   
   
   

   With the switch to float64, it can instead be:

   
   
   

   totalExecTime := 0.0
   

   
   



2. Some of your comments extend beyond the 80-character column. It is useful to stay within 80 characters when viewing things split across your screen. Instead, move comments to the line before the code. (Some of these comments are superfluous, but you're learning so that's okay.)




3. Store len(sites)*len(pages) in a constant, rather than recomputing it each time.

Conclusion

Here is the code I ended up with:

package main

import (
 "fmt"
 "net/http"
 "time"
)

const tries = 1000

type pageBenchmark struct 
 url string
 time float64


func execBenchmark(url string, benchmarks chan pageBenchmark) 
 // prevent blocked goroutine
 timeChan := make(chan float64, tries)
 time := 0.0

 // start all requests
 for i := 0; i < tries; i++ 
 go execHTTPRequest(url, timeChan)
 

 // catch new values from execHTTPRequest()
 for i := 0; i < tries; i++ 
 // wait to get value from goroutine
 time += <-timeChan
 

 benchmarks <- pageBenchmarkurl, time / tries


// exec http request and attach exec time to channel
func execHTTPRequest(url string, timeChan chan float64) 
 begin := time.Now()
 _, _ = http.Get(url)
 timeChan <- time.Since(begin).Seconds()


func main() 
 sites := [...]string
 // sites
 

 pages := [...]string
 // pages
 

 const length = len(sites) * len(pages)

 // set size to prevent blocked goroutine
 benchmarks := make(chan pageBenchmark, length)

 begin := time.Now()

 fmt.Println("Beginning!n")

 // start all the goroutines
 for site := range sites 
 for page := range pages 
 go execBenchmark(sites[site]+pages[page], benchmarks)
 
 

 // catch and print benchmarks
 for i := 0; i < length; i++ 
 b := <-benchmarks
 fmt.Printf("Url: %snResponse Time: %.0fsnn", b.url, b.time)
 

 // print total execution time
 fmt.Printf("End.nTotal time: %.0fsn", time.Since(begin).Seconds())

Hope this helps!