Slow rails performance when POSTing specific JSON - ruby

Question

I've been testing my app's performance and found out that it takes 1 second from the time that data was posted to executing first line of action method. I'm testing this on empty rails 4 app (created using rails new app_name) and ruby 1.9.3-p448. I've only added one controller:
class TestController < ApplicationController
skip_before_filter :verify_authenticity_token
def testt
render json: {new: true}
end
end
and a route:
post "api/v1/tt" => "test#testt"
Here's the JSON that I'm posting:
{
"params": {
"updatedBy": "f092d32a-1e38-4f07-8b76-185393138d86",
"data": [
{
"typeName": "test",
"total": 995,
"timeOffset": 13,
"timestamp": 1404323549565,
"hidden": false,
"guid": "9fc91203-e558-43e1-b585-aefbd281c5f5",
"modificationDate": 1404316375054,
"deleted": false
},
{
"typeName": "test",
"total": 995,
"timeOffset": 13,
"timestamp": 1404323549565,
"hidden": false,
"guid": "9fc91203-e558-43e1-b585-aefbd281c5f5",
"modificationDate": 1404316375054,
"deleted": false
},
{
"typeName": "test",
"total": 995,
"timeOffset": 13,
"timestamp": 1404323549565,
"hidden": false,
"guid": "9fc91203-e558-43e1-b585-aefbd281c5f5",
"modificationDate": 1404316375054,
"deleted": false
},
{
"typeName": "test",
"total": 995,
"timeOffset": 13,
"timestamp": 1404323549565,
"hidden": false,
"guid": "9fc91203-e558-43e1-b585-aefbd281c5f5",
"modificationDate": 1404316375054,
"deleted": false
},
{
"typeName": "test",
"total": 995,
"timeOffset": 13,
"timestamp": 1404323549565,
"hidden": false,
"guid": "9fc91203-e558-43e1-b585-aefbd281c5f5",
"modificationDate": 1404316375054,
"deleted": false
}
]
}
}
using this command:
curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" -b cookies -c cookies --request POST "http://localhost/api/v1/tt" --data "#upload.json" -w "#timings-format.txt"
timings-format.txt contains:
time_namelookup: %{time_namelookup}\n
time_connect: %{time_connect}\n
time_appconnect: %{time_appconnect}\n
time_pretransfer: %{time_pretransfer}\n
time_redirect: %{time_redirect}\n
time_starttransfer: %{time_starttransfer}\n
----------\n
time_total: %{time_total}\n
When I run the command, I get something like this:
{"new":true}
time_namelookup: 0,001
time_connect: 0,001
time_appconnect: 0,000
time_pretransfer: 0,001
time_redirect: 0,000
time_starttransfer: 1,003
----------
time_total: 1,010
If I minify the JSON like this:
{"params":{"updatedBy":"f092d32a-1e38-4f07-8b76-185393138d86","data":[{"typeName":"test","total":995,"timeOffset":13,"timestamp":1404323549565,"hidden":false,"guid":"9fc91203-e558-43e1-b585-aefbd281c5f5","modificationDate":1404316375054,"deleted":false},{"typeName":"test","total":995,"timeOffset":13,"timestamp":1404323549565,"hidden":false,"guid":"9fc91203-e558-43e1-b585-aefbd281c5f5","modificationDate":1404316375054,"deleted":false},{"typeName":"test","total":995,"timeOffset":13,"timestamp":1404323549565,"hidden":false,"guid":"9fc91203-e558-43e1-b585-aefbd281c5f5","modificationDate":1404316375054,"deleted":false},{"typeName":"test","total":995,"timeOffset":13,"timestamp":1404323549565,"hidden":false,"guid":"9fc91203-e558-43e1-b585-aefbd281c5f5","modificationDate":1404316375054,"deleted":false},{"typeName":"test","total":995,"timeOffset":13,"timestamp":1404323549565,"hidden":false,"guid":"9fc91203-e558-43e1-b585-aefbd281c5f5","modificationDate":1404316375054,"deleted":false}]}}
and the run the command again, I get:
{"new":true}
time_namelookup: 0,001
time_connect: 0,002
time_appconnect: 0,000
time_pretransfer: 0,002
time_redirect: 0,000
time_starttransfer: 0,008
----------
time_total: 0,008
Does anyone have an idea of what is going on? I also have larger JSON that is minified but it still takes 1 second to execute empty action...

Answer 1

Your are in development mode and things are just slower by nature on it. Also your are probably using Webrick as development server and it is slow too. Check on real production deployment in production mode with nginx + unicorn or nginx + passenger. Perform several requests, as it needs also to warm up.
And i really would grab rvm and get ruby-2.1.2, the most rock solid MRI Ruby implementation ever

Answer 2

Turns out the problem was in cURL. After implementing the same thing in ruby (just reading file and POSTing the date), I get saner times (cca 20-30ms).
Here is detailed explanation:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/17390776/579843