csvfind

This repository started out as a simple CSV search tool written in C for a YouTube video. It was my first ever C program.

It has since turned into somewhat of a competition of different programming languages: Which one can create the fastest tool?

Currently, the PHP version is the winner

$ php test.php
Compiling...
Testing...
0.960888s: php csvfind.php output.csv winkpad
0.396362s: php csvfind_v2.php output.csv winkpad
0.567590s: ./c-csvfind-test-orig output.csv winkpad
0.578368s: ./c-csvfind-test output.csv winkpad
1.219467s: ./rust-csvfind-test output.csv winkpad
0.487401s: ./rust-csvfindv2-test output.csv winkpad

Usage

To compile, run the following command

$ gcc csvfind.c -O -o csvfind

To use it, use the command

$ ./csvfind INPUT_FILE SEARCH_TERM [HEADER_NAME]

For example, to search in products.csv for rows that have sunglasses in the name column, use

$ ./csvfind products.csv sunglasses name

Videos

How I made it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-45gWVRLb-Q

1st C/PHP/Rust comparison:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPkhjIGlbbU

2nd C/PHP/Rust comparison:
Coming soon...

Background

The csvfind.c is the program I have written. I created the program using help from ChatGPT. I avoided asking too direct questions, like "how to parse CSV files in C", but instead I asked "how to read a file line by line" and "how to split a string by a comma" etc. in order to actually learn something from this experience.

There is also a csvfind_chatgpt.c file that was created by ChatGPT via a single prompt. I made this prompt after I finished creating my own version. It works similarly, but it is not case-insensitive.

PHP version

I also made a PHP version of the program to test the performance of my C program compared to PHP. Surprisingly my original C program was slower than the PHP version. I then optimized the C code to make it faster than the PHP version. The main problem was using the to_lowercase function along with strstr. By switching to strcasestr the program became a lot faster.

Later, @fezfez wrote a new PHP version, that was faster than the C version.

Rust version

As I was testing the performance between the PHP version and the C version, I also created a Rust version to see whether it would be faster than the PHP version. It was not. However, @alan910127 created a Rust version that was actually faster than the PHP and the C versions. Since then @fezfez has written a faster PHP version, that is actually faster than the Rust version and the C version.

Join the contest

Feel free to send a pull request if you can make the Rust / C / PHP version any faster. You can also create the tool in another programming language!

unconv / csvfind