Of course I still use Perl

UPDATE #1 2014-07-11: Added Catmandu::Exporter::Table. This module is not exactly lightweight, so I will not consider it for usage in Perinci::CmdLine::Lite, but it's interesting to benchmark anyway.

UPDATE #2 2014-07-11: Nudged by me, Jakob extracted the table-generating
functionality of Catmandu::Exporter::Table into its own module Text::MarkdownTable. This module depends on nothing but Moo. Great job Jakob. Although for my particular project Perinci::CmdLine::Lite, I declared that Moo is a bit too heavy, and so excluded it. :)

UPDATE #3 2014-07-11: Added more modules to the mix: Text::FormatTable, Text::Table::Tiny. Excluded more modules: Data::ShowTable, Text::UnicodeBox::Table.

UPDATE #4 2014-07-11: Excluded 2 more modules: Table::Simple, Text::SimpleTable::AutoWidth

For my upcoming Perinci::CmdLine::Lite module, I want to use a small and fast ASCII-table-generator module to replace Text::ANSITable. That module, which I wrote, is featureful (and is currently the only CPAN module which can handle ANSI colors, wide characters, multiline text), but is horribly slow, about an order or two of magnitude slower than the other ASCII table modules because it needs to parse ASCII escape color codes in text as well as counting visual widths of characters. A C implementation for that is needed to really speed it up. When we don't care about colors (or wide characters), it's better to use the simpler and faster modules.

Here are several which I included in this benchmark:

• Text::ANSITable

• Text::ASCIITable

• Text::FormatTable

• Text::MarkdownTable

• Text::Table

• Text::TabularDisplay

• Text::Table::Tiny

Some of the other modules are not included:

• Text::SimpleTable, because it doesn't calculate column widths for us, we need to supply widths ourselves.

• Data::ShowTable, because of the interface. The interface is, how should I say it, unfitting for the simple case of formatting an array of arrays. You have to construct a "row subroutine" which must react to a rewindable argument, and iterate the rows yourself. Plus the module is designed to print to STDOUT instead of returning the rendered string (you can use IO::Scalar or Capture::Tiny, but...)

• Text::UnicodeBox::Table because it's designed to use Unicode non-ASCII border characters.

• Table::Simple (currently skipping Moose-using modules because startup overhead is too big)

• Text::SimpleTable::AutoWidth (currently skipping Moose-using modules because startup overhead is too big)

Below is the result (the code is here):

Text::ANSITable:
.--------+--------+--------.
| col1   | col2   | col3   |
+--------+--------+--------+
| row1.1 | row1.2 | row1.3 |
| row2.1 | row2.2 | row2.3 |
| row3.1 | row3.2 | row3.3 |
| row4.1 | row4.2 | row4.3 |
| row5.1 | row5.2 | row5.3 |
`--------+--------+--------'

Text::ASCIITable:

.--------------------------.

| col1   | col2   | col3   |

+--------+--------+--------+

| row1.1 | row1.2 | row1.3 |

| row2.1 | row2.2 | row2.3 |

| row3.1 | row3.2 | row3.3 |

| row4.1 | row4.2 | row4.3 |

| row5.1 | row5.2 | row5.3 |

'--------+--------+--------'

Text::FormatTable:

col1  |col2  |col3  

row1.1|row1.2|row1.3

row2.1|row2.2|row2.3

row3.1|row3.2|row3.3

row4.1|row4.2|row4.3

row5.1|row5.2|row5.3

Text::MarkdownTable:

| col1   | col2   | col3   |

|--------|--------|--------|

| row1.1 | row1.2 | row1.3 |

| row2.1 | row2.2 | row2.3 |

| row3.1 | row3.2 | row3.3 |

| row4.1 | row4.2 | row4.3 |

| row5.1 | row5.2 | row5.3 |

Text::Table:

col1   col2   col3  

row1.1 row1.2 row1.3

row2.1 row2.2 row2.3

row3.1 row3.2 row3.3

row4.1 row4.2 row4.3

row5.1 row5.2 row5.3

Text::Table::Tiny:

+--------+--------+--------+

| col1   | col2   | col3   |

+--------+--------+--------+

| row1.1 | row1.2 | row1.3 |

| row2.1 | row2.2 | row2.3 |

| row3.1 | row3.2 | row3.3 |

| row4.1 | row4.2 | row4.3 |

| row5.1 | row5.2 | row5.3 |

+--------+--------+--------+

Text::TabularDisplay:

+--------+--------+--------+

| col1   | col2   | col3   |

+--------+--------+--------+

| row1.1 | row1.2 | row1.3 |

| row2.1 | row2.2 | row2.3 |

| row3.1 | row3.2 | row3.3 |

| row4.1 | row4.2 | row4.3 |

| row5.1 | row5.2 | row5.3 |

+--------+--------+--------+

0tiny(1x1) table:

                        Rate Text::ANSITable Text::ASCIITable Text::Table Text::MarkdownTable Text::FormatTable Text::TabularDisplay Text::Table::Tiny

Text::ANSITable       2732/s              --             -64%        -79%                -83%              -86%                 -91%              -96%

Text::ASCIITable      7565/s            177%               --        -43%                -53%              -60%                 -74%              -89%

Text::Table          13273/s            386%              75%          --                -17%              -30%                 -55%              -81%

Text::MarkdownTable  15999/s            486%             111%         21%                  --              -16%                 -45%              -78%

Text::FormatTable    19040/s            597%             152%         43%                 19%                --                 -35%              -73%

Text::TabularDisplay 29191/s            969%             286%        120%                 82%               53%                   --              -59%

Text::Table::Tiny    71521/s           2518%             845%        439%                347%              276%                 145%                --

1small(3x5) table:

                        Rate Text::ANSITable Text::ASCIITable Text::FormatTable Text::Table Text::MarkdownTable Text::TabularDisplay Text::Table::Tiny

Text::ANSITable        662/s              --             -62%              -83%        -86%                -89%                 -91%              -98%

Text::ASCIITable      1744/s            163%               --              -54%        -64%                -70%                 -77%              -95%

Text::FormatTable     3828/s            478%             119%                --        -20%                -34%                 -50%              -90%

Text::Table           4799/s            624%             175%               25%          --                -17%                 -37%              -87%

Text::MarkdownTable   5784/s            773%             232%               51%         21%                  --                 -24%              -84%

Text::TabularDisplay  7658/s           1056%             339%              100%         60%                 32%                   --              -79%

Text::Table::Tiny    36654/s           5433%            2002%              857%        664%                534%                 379%                --

2wide(30x5) table:

                       Rate Text::ANSITable Text::ASCIITable Text::FormatTable Text::Table Text::MarkdownTable Text::TabularDisplay Text::Table::Tiny

Text::ANSITable      78.5/s              --             -59%              -81%        -89%                -93%                 -94%              -99%

Text::ASCIITable      189/s            141%               --              -53%        -73%                -83%                 -85%              -97%

Text::FormatTable     403/s            413%             113%                --        -42%                -64%                 -68%              -95%

Text::Table           697/s            789%             269%               73%          --                -38%                 -45%              -91%

Text::MarkdownTable  1131/s           1341%             498%              181%         62%                  --                 -10%              -85%

Text::TabularDisplay 1260/s           1505%             566%              213%         81%                 11%                   --              -83%

Text::Table::Tiny    7473/s           9423%            3851%             1756%        972%                561%                 493%                --

3long(3x300) table:

            (warning: too few iterations for a reliable count)

                       Rate Text::ANSITable Text::ASCIITable Text::FormatTable Text::MarkdownTable Text::TabularDisplay Text::Table Text::Table::Tiny

Text::ANSITable      16.0/s              --             -60%              -81%                -90%                 -91%        -95%              -99%

Text::ASCIITable     40.2/s            151%               --              -52%                -74%                 -76%        -87%              -97%

Text::FormatTable    84.6/s            427%             110%                --                -46%                 -50%        -72%              -94%

Text::MarkdownTable   156/s            874%             288%               85%                  --                  -8%        -48%              -90%

Text::TabularDisplay  169/s            954%             321%              100%                  8%                   --        -44%              -89%

Text::Table           301/s           1777%             649%              256%                 93%                  78%          --              -80%

Text::Table::Tiny    1537/s           9474%            3718%             1716%                883%                 808%        410%                --

4large(30x300) table:

            (warning: too few iterations for a reliable count)

            (warning: too few iterations for a reliable count)

            (warning: too few iterations for a reliable count)

                       Rate Text::ANSITable Text::ASCIITable Text::FormatTable Text::MarkdownTable Text::TabularDisplay Text::Table Text::Table::Tiny

Text::ANSITable      1.74/s              --             -57%              -82%                -93%                 -93%        -98%              -99%

Text::ASCIITable     4.00/s            130%               --              -59%                -84%                 -85%        -95%              -98%

Text::FormatTable    9.88/s            468%             147%                --                -60%                 -62%        -88%              -96%

Text::MarkdownTable  25.0/s           1338%             525%              153%                  --                  -4%        -70%              -89%

Text::TabularDisplay 25.9/s           1391%             548%              163%                  4%                   --        -69%              -88%

Text::Table          82.5/s           4644%            1963%              735%                230%                 218%          --              -63%

Text::Table::Tiny     224/s          12766%            5494%             2165%                795%                 763%        171%                --

Conclusion (2014-07-11)

• Text::Table::Tiny wins hands down and is my choice. It is very fast because it doesn't copy rows and uses a long sprintf() format to do the formatting of a whole row instead of formatting each cell separately and joining them into a row using join(). Actually earlier today I had the exact same idea *and* module name, but turned out somebody had already did it. Thanks, Creighton Higgins!

• Text::ANSITable is very slow and is expected. I'm including it for comparison only.

• Text::ASCIITable is surprisingly relatively slow, given that it doesn't do colors or wide characters or multilines. It shouldn't be much slower than, say, Text::Table or Text::TabularDisplay.