ciscoconfparse2 is slower than ciscoconfparse

[mpenning]

Question

When parsing a large configuration such as tests/fixtures/configs/sample_06.ios and auto_commit=True, ciscoconfparse2 version 0.2.5 takes about 1.55 seconds on my system; however, parsing the same configuration with ciscoconfparse version
1.9.41 takes about 1.40 seconds.

sample_06.ios has over 4700 physical and virtual interfaces.

Why is ciscoconfparse2 about 10% slower?

try:
    # fail if we can't import ciscoconfparse2
    from ciscoconfparse2 import CiscoConfParse
except BaseException:
    from ciscoconfparse import CiscoConfParse

# auto_commit defaults True in ciscoconfparse2
parse = CiscoConfParse('tests/fixtures/configs/sample_06.ios', syntax='ios')

Answer:

This is due to the safety features that ciscoconfparse2 has; specifically it's due to the additional configuration safety built with in the ConfigList().get_checkpoint() method. get_checkpoint() is called with each commit() operation.

As of version 0.2.5, there are two big rocks that could chew up a lot of time:

• assign_parent_to_closing_braces() which is a function from legacy ciscoconfparse
• ConfigList().get_checkpoint(), which is a new method in ciscoconfparse2

Making ciscoconfparse2 significantly faster is a long-term improvement, if possible.