--- /dev/null Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/find-closest/README.md Sat Nov 29 13:25:15 2014 +0800
+This is a benchmark for some different methods of searching for a file/dir
+upwards in a filesystem hierarchy. Disclaimer: the code is pretty ad-hoc and
+Finding a specific file/dir in parent directories is useful as a fast
+preliminary check before running more complex and potentially slower commands.
+Such use case is checking if directory is tracked in a version control system,
+and in this particular case — mercurial. So here all `hgroot_*.sh` files search
+for a `.hg/` directory upwards.
+Here's the output of `test.sh`:
+ builtins dirname upsearch
+ ok 0.292 ok 0.577 ok 0.207
+ ok 0.295 ok 0.700 ok 0.218
+ ok 0.303 ok 0.836 ok 0.234
+ ok 0.306 ok 0.967 ok 0.261
+ ok 0.324 ok 1.147 ok 0.254
+ ok 0.271 ok 1.248 ok 0.260
+ ok 0.344 ok 1.387 ok 0.261
+ ok 0.339 ok 1.555 ok 0.267
+ ok 0.327 ok 1.722 ok 0.274
+ ok 0.343 ok 1.734 ok 0.277
+ builtins dirname upsearch
+ ok 0.294 ok 0.330 ok 0.203
+ ok 0.292 ok 0.466 ok 0.228
+ ok 0.305 ok 0.666 ok 0.230
+ ok 0.306 ok 0.729 ok 0.225
+ ok 0.309 ok 0.848 ok 0.231
+ ok 0.316 ok 0.997 ok 0.250
+ ok 0.315 ok 1.139 ok 0.242
+ ok 0.324 ok 1.202 ok 0.244
+ ok 0.314 ok 1.323 ok 0.253
+ ok 0.324 ok 1.471 ok 0.274
+- `builtins` = `hgroot_1.sh`, `dirname` = `hgroot_2.sh` and `upsearch` =
+- results are in seconds x 100, that is, 0.292 is how many a hundred calls to
+ the command takes, so each call is ~2.92ms
+First the test script runs (100 times for a good measure) all contestant
+implementations in directories without a `.hg/` anywhere upwards (assuming your
+`/` or `/tmp` is untracked), one directory deeper at a time: so the last result
+is for case when the script is 10 directories deep inside `/tmp/tmp.XXX/`
+directory (test root). Then the test script adds an empty `.hg/` directory in
+the test root and runs everything one more time. There are quirks, as I said,
+but I believe the results are fairly accurate still.