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Testing Gson Performance Benchmarks in google/gson

This comprehensive performance test suite evaluates the serialization and deserialization capabilities of Google’s Gson library. It focuses on testing large data structures, memory limits, and processing efficiency for various Java objects and collections.

Test Coverage Overview

The test suite provides extensive coverage of Gson’s performance characteristics across different scenarios.

  • String deserialization with increasing payload sizes
  • Large collection serialization and deserialization (up to 1.4M entries)
  • Byte array handling (up to 14MB)
  • Performance benchmarking for class serialization/deserialization
  • Large Map object processing (100K+ entries)

Implementation Analysis

The testing approach employs JUnit framework with systematic performance measurement techniques.

Key patterns include:
  • Iterative size increase testing for memory limits
  • Timed execution measurements using System.currentTimeMillis()
  • Controlled test data generation with StringBuilder
  • Use of @Ignore annotation for manual execution control

Technical Details

Testing infrastructure includes:

  • JUnit test framework with @Test and @Ignore annotations
  • Custom test classes with @Expose annotations
  • TypeToken for generic type handling
  • StringBuilder for large JSON construction
  • System timing utilities for performance measurement

Best Practices Demonstrated

The test suite exemplifies several testing best practices:

  • Systematic performance benchmarking with iteration counts
  • Edge case testing with increasing data sizes
  • Clear separation of test scenarios
  • Comprehensive documentation of test purposes
  • Controlled test execution with @Ignore annotations

google/gson

gson/src/test/java/com/google/gson/metrics/PerformanceTest.java

            
/*
 * Copyright (C) 2008 Google Inc.
 *
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */

package com.google.gson.metrics;

import static com.google.common.truth.Truth.assertThat;

import com.google.gson.Gson;
import com.google.gson.JsonParseException;
import com.google.gson.annotations.Expose;
import com.google.gson.reflect.TypeToken;
import java.io.StringWriter;
import java.lang.reflect.Type;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;
import org.junit.Before;
import org.junit.Ignore;
import org.junit.Test;

/**
 * Tests to measure performance for Gson. All tests in this file will be disabled in code. To run
 * them remove the {@code @Ignore} annotation from the tests.
 *
 * @author Inderjeet Singh
 * @author Joel Leitch
 */
@SuppressWarnings("SystemOut") // allow System.out because test is for manual execution anyway
public class PerformanceTest {
  private static final int COLLECTION_SIZE = 5000;

  private static final int NUM_ITERATIONS = 100;

  private Gson gson;

  @Before
  public void setUp() throws Exception {
    gson = new Gson();
  }

  @Test
  public void testDummy() {
    // This is here to prevent Junit for complaining when we disable all tests.
  }

  @Test
  @Ignore
  public void testStringDeserialization() {
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(8096);
    sb.append("Error Yippie");

    while (true) {
      try {
        String stackTrace = sb.toString();
        sb.append(stackTrace);
        String json = "{\"message\":\"Error message.\"," + "\"stackTrace\":\"" + stackTrace + "\"}";
        parseLongJson(json);
        System.out.println("Gson could handle a string of size: " + stackTrace.length());
      } catch (JsonParseException expected) {
        break;
      }
    }
  }

  private void parseLongJson(String json) throws JsonParseException {
    ExceptionHolder target = gson.fromJson(json, ExceptionHolder.class);
    assertThat(target.message).contains("Error");
    assertThat(target.stackTrace).contains("Yippie");
  }

  private static class ExceptionHolder {
    public final String message;
    public final String stackTrace;

    // For use by Gson
    @SuppressWarnings("unused")
    private ExceptionHolder() {
      this("", "");
    }

    public ExceptionHolder(String message, String stackTrace) {
      this.message = message;
      this.stackTrace = stackTrace;
    }
  }

  @SuppressWarnings("unused")
  private static class CollectionEntry {
    final String name;
    final String value;

    // For use by Gson
    private CollectionEntry() {
      this(null, null);
    }

    CollectionEntry(String name, String value) {
      this.name = name;
      this.value = value;
    }
  }

  /** Created in response to http://code.google.com/p/google-gson/issues/detail?id=96 */
  @Test
  @Ignore
  public void testLargeCollectionSerialization() {
    int count = 1400000;
    List<CollectionEntry> list = new ArrayList<>(count);
    for (int i = 0; i < count; ++i) {
      list.add(new CollectionEntry("name" + i, "value" + i));
    }
    String unused = gson.toJson(list);
  }

  /** Created in response to http://code.google.com/p/google-gson/issues/detail?id=96 */
  @Test
  @Ignore
  public void testLargeCollectionDeserialization() {
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    int count = 87000;
    boolean first = true;
    sb.append('[');
    for (int i = 0; i < count; ++i) {
      if (first) {
        first = false;
      } else {
        sb.append(',');
      }
      sb.append("{name:'name").append(i).append("',value:'value").append(i).append("'}");
    }
    sb.append(']');
    String json = sb.toString();
    Type collectionType = new TypeToken<ArrayList<CollectionEntry>>() {}.getType();
    List<CollectionEntry> list = gson.fromJson(json, collectionType);
    assertThat(list).hasSize(count);
  }

  /** Created in response to http://code.google.com/p/google-gson/issues/detail?id=96 */
  // Last I tested, Gson was able to serialize upto 14MB byte array
  @Test
  @Ignore
  public void testByteArraySerialization() {
    for (int size = 4145152; true; size += 1036288) {
      byte[] ba = new byte[size];
      for (int i = 0; i < size; ++i) {
        ba[i] = 0x05;
      }
      String unused = gson.toJson(ba);
      System.out.printf("Gson could serialize a byte array of size: %d\n", size);
    }
  }

  /** Created in response to http://code.google.com/p/google-gson/issues/detail?id=96 */
  // Last I tested, Gson was able to deserialize a byte array of 11MB
  @Test
  @Ignore
  public void testByteArrayDeserialization() {
    for (int numElements = 10639296; true; numElements += 16384) {
      StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(numElements * 2);
      sb.append("[");
      boolean first = true;
      for (int i = 0; i < numElements; ++i) {
        if (first) {
          first = false;
        } else {
          sb.append(",");
        }
        sb.append("5");
      }
      sb.append("]");
      String json = sb.toString();
      byte[] ba = gson.fromJson(json, byte[].class);
      System.out.printf("Gson could deserialize a byte array of size: %d\n", ba.length);
    }
  }

  // The tests to measure serialization and deserialization performance of Gson
  // Based on the discussion at
  // http://groups.google.com/group/google-gson/browse_thread/thread/7a50b17a390dfaeb
  // Test results: 10/19/2009
  // Serialize classes avg time: 60 ms
  // Deserialized classes avg time: 70 ms
  // Serialize exposed classes avg time: 159 ms
  // Deserialized exposed classes avg time: 173 ms

  @Test
  @Ignore
  public void testSerializeClasses() {
    ClassWithList c = new ClassWithList("str");
    for (int i = 0; i < COLLECTION_SIZE; ++i) {
      c.list.add(new ClassWithField("element-" + i));
    }
    StringWriter w = new StringWriter();
    long t1 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    for (int i = 0; i < NUM_ITERATIONS; ++i) {
      gson.toJson(c, w);
    }
    long t2 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    long avg = (t2 - t1) / NUM_ITERATIONS;
    System.out.printf("Serialize classes avg time: %d ms\n", avg);
  }

  @Test
  @Ignore
  public void testDeserializeClasses() {
    String json = buildJsonForClassWithList();
    ClassWithList[] target = new ClassWithList[NUM_ITERATIONS];
    long t1 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    for (int i = 0; i < NUM_ITERATIONS; ++i) {
      target[i] = gson.fromJson(json, ClassWithList.class);
    }
    long t2 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    long avg = (t2 - t1) / NUM_ITERATIONS;
    System.out.printf("Deserialize classes avg time: %d ms\n", avg);
  }

  @Test
  @Ignore
  public void testLargeObjectSerializationAndDeserialization() {
    Map<String, Long> largeObject = new HashMap<>();
    for (long l = 0; l < 100000; l++) {
      largeObject.put("field" + l, l);
    }

    long t1 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    String json = gson.toJson(largeObject);
    long t2 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    System.out.printf("Large object serialized in: %d ms\n", (t2 - t1));

    t1 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    Map<String, Long> unused = gson.fromJson(json, new TypeToken<Map<String, Long>>() {}.getType());
    t2 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    System.out.printf("Large object deserialized in: %d ms\n", (t2 - t1));
  }

  @Test
  @Ignore
  public void testSerializeExposedClasses() {
    ClassWithListOfObjects c1 = new ClassWithListOfObjects("str");
    for (int i1 = 0; i1 < COLLECTION_SIZE; ++i1) {
      c1.list.add(new ClassWithExposedField("element-" + i1));
    }
    ClassWithListOfObjects c = c1;
    StringWriter w = new StringWriter();
    long t1 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    for (int i = 0; i < NUM_ITERATIONS; ++i) {
      gson.toJson(c, w);
    }
    long t2 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    long avg = (t2 - t1) / NUM_ITERATIONS;
    System.out.printf("Serialize exposed classes avg time: %d ms\n", avg);
  }

  @Test
  @Ignore
  public void testDeserializeExposedClasses() {
    String json = buildJsonForClassWithList();
    ClassWithListOfObjects[] target = new ClassWithListOfObjects[NUM_ITERATIONS];
    long t1 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    for (int i = 0; i < NUM_ITERATIONS; ++i) {
      target[i] = gson.fromJson(json, ClassWithListOfObjects.class);
    }
    long t2 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    long avg = (t2 - t1) / NUM_ITERATIONS;
    System.out.printf("Deserialize exposed classes avg time: %d ms\n", avg);
  }

  @Test
  @Ignore
  public void testLargeGsonMapRoundTrip() throws Exception {
    Map<Long, Long> original = new HashMap<>();
    for (long i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) {
      original.put(i, i + 1);
    }

    Gson gson = new Gson();
    String json = gson.toJson(original);
    Type longToLong = new TypeToken<Map<Long, Long>>() {}.getType();
    Map<Long, Long> unused = gson.fromJson(json, longToLong);
  }

  private static String buildJsonForClassWithList() {
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder("{");
    sb.append("field:").append("'str',");
    sb.append("list:[");
    boolean first = true;
    for (int i = 0; i < COLLECTION_SIZE; ++i) {
      if (first) {
        first = false;
      } else {
        sb.append(',');
      }
      sb.append("{field:'element-" + i + "'}");
    }
    sb.append(']');
    sb.append('}');
    String json = sb.toString();
    return json;
  }

  @SuppressWarnings("unused")
  private static final class ClassWithList {
    final String field;
    final List<ClassWithField> list = new ArrayList<>(COLLECTION_SIZE);

    ClassWithList() {
      this(null);
    }

    ClassWithList(String field) {
      this.field = field;
    }
  }

  @SuppressWarnings("unused")
  private static final class ClassWithField {
    final String field;

    ClassWithField() {
      this("");
    }

    public ClassWithField(String field) {
      this.field = field;
    }
  }

  @SuppressWarnings("unused")
  private static final class ClassWithListOfObjects {
    @Expose final String field;
    @Expose final List<ClassWithExposedField> list = new ArrayList<>(COLLECTION_SIZE);

    ClassWithListOfObjects() {
      this(null);
    }

    ClassWithListOfObjects(String field) {
      this.field = field;
    }
  }

  @SuppressWarnings("unused")
  private static final class ClassWithExposedField {
    @Expose final String field;

    ClassWithExposedField() {
      this("");
    }

    ClassWithExposedField(String field) {
      this.field = field;
    }
  }
}