This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz by Eric Hodel. Original Post: Marshal.load Speed Feed Title: Segment7 Feed URL: http://blog.segment7.net/articles.rss Feed Description: Posts about and around Ruby, MetaRuby, ruby2c, ZenTest and work at The Robot Co-op. Latest Ruby Buzz Posts Latest Ruby Buzz Posts by Eric Hodel Latest Posts From Segment7

File.open 'dump' do |fp| Marshal.load fp end

Is much slower than:

File.open 'dump' do |fp| Marshal.load fp.read end

Because the former uses IO#getc and the latter operates directly on a String.

I learned this tonight while helping profile code at a Seattle.rb hacking night.