Ran the included katebench.pl on a machine with: Athlon 64 X2 4200+ processor, 1 Gb DDR2 RAM. SuSE 10.1 perl v5.8.8 built for x86_64-linux-thread-multi perl -Mblib bin/katebench.pl yielded following result: ==================================================== BENCHMARK REPORT FOR Sybtax::Highlight::Engine::Kate ==================================================== Report for \$kate->highlight, done 5 iterations. language size min max total throughput testfile time time time (bytes/second) .desktop 369 0.017896 0.041712 0.114448 16120 AHDL 566 0.125456 0.279731 0.786463 3598 ASP 1485 0.260784 0.561476 1.615621 4595 AVR Assembler 6644 0.421711 0.436861 2.149667 15453 AWK 437 0.024925 0.026933 0.127714 17108 Bash 3607 0.703043 0.720531 3.566455 5056 BibTeX 538 0.039291 0.040789 0.200558 13412 C++ 99507 14.953728 15.450683 75.859512 6558 CMake 1499 0.120126 0.124442 0.608373 12319 CSS 672 0.040468 0.044551 0.210520 15960 Clipper 1194 0.226911 0.235738 1.152528 5179 Common Lisp 816 0.165443 0.181320 0.877062 4651 Doxygen 11010 0.888967 0.929259 4.566993 12053 Eiffel 2033 0.211583 0.218824 1.070320 9497 Euphoria 2172 0.355813 0.370958 1.811855 5993 Fortran 5548 1.807723 1.878556 9.257825 2996 GLSL 1072 0.074047 0.076420 0.376737 14227 HTML 19152 1.267261 1.315438 6.463549 14815 Haskell 4472 0.342871 0.356339 1.758350 12716 Intel x86 (NASM)6644 0.838284 0.875227 4.304778 7717 JSP 5570 0.797113 0.858184 4.186729 6651 Java 6515 1.371275 1.501784 7.279859 4474 JavaScript 3399 0.283587 0.300165 1.460806 11633 LaTeX 1108 0.065724 0.067669 0.334383 16567 Lex/Flex 1346 0.140861 0.148026 0.718658 9364 LilyPond 12400 14.286850 14.738266 72.540980 854 Literate Haskell4472 0.176976 0.180912 0.893610 25022 Matlab 1780 0.006586 0.007632 0.034442 258405 Octave 1780 0.731120 0.798107 3.861955 2304 PHP (HTML) 335 0.038921 0.042895 0.201134 8327 POV-Ray 1122 0.161725 0.172074 0.843192 6653 Perl 778 0.146464 0.154737 0.759779 5119 PicAsm 6644 0.852943 0.886777 4.353768 7630 Pike 615 0.059906 0.062702 0.303955 10116 PostScript 4003 0.327717 0.354577 1.731682 11558 PureBasic 1693 0.474221 0.493794 2.436093 3474 Python 13785 1.874065 1.957159 9.583413 7192 Quake Script 3185 1.610513 1.774066 8.655501 1839 Ruby 12270 6.162694 6.424011 31.357799 1956 Scheme 4616 0.800743 0.820531 4.048291 5701 Spice 677 0.038337 0.041246 0.197985 17097 Stata 2948 0.260329 0.270642 1.333262 11055 Tcl/Tk 823 0.161246 0.164940 0.815275 5047 UnrealScript 6023 0.772178 0.789817 3.914150 7693 VRML 1516 0.149400 0.152703 0.755984 10026 XML 1467 0.057861 0.060277 0.296679 24723 xslt 3372 0.176137 0.181484 0.888863 18968 yacas 1037 0.098742 0.100638 0.499157 10387 Totals 274716 54.970565 57.671602 281.166710 4885 Averages 5723 1.145220 1.201492 5.857640 ==================================================== Report for \$kate->highlightText, done 5 iterations. language size min max total throughput testfile time time time (bytes/second) .desktop 369 0.018614 0.042220 0.118609 15555 AHDL 566 0.126599 0.282289 0.794583 3561 ASP 1485 0.259915 0.269348 1.328664 5588 AVR Assembler 6644 0.437913 0.455206 2.235716 14858 AWK 437 0.025510 0.027433 0.132392 16504 Bash 3607 0.708762 0.728163 3.609764 4996 BibTeX 538 0.040542 0.041899 0.205663 13079 C++ 99507 15.523637 16.054039 79.040251 6294 CMake 1499 0.121297 0.127037 0.618008 12127 CSS 672 0.042209 0.044905 0.218604 15370 Clipper 1194 0.229625 0.240095 1.170711 5099 Common Lisp 816 0.169377 0.184814 0.897525 4545 Doxygen 11010 0.908975 0.946329 4.661227 11810 Eiffel 2033 0.214556 0.221103 1.088299 9340 Euphoria 2172 0.361649 0.379297 1.845967 5883 Fortran 5548 1.816038 1.904576 9.308223 2980 GLSL 1072 0.076500 0.079918 0.391169 13702 HTML 19152 1.312297 1.366687 6.684365 14325 Haskell 4472 0.354832 0.369188 1.821068 12278 Intel x86 (NASM)6644 0.853720 0.896656 4.376061 7591 JSP 5570 0.812898 0.877496 4.269827 6522 Java 6515 1.387593 1.512067 7.363857 4423 JavaScript 3399 0.290250 0.307326 1.494043 11375 LaTeX 1108 0.068213 0.072358 0.348039 15917 Lex/Flex 1346 0.140373 0.146290 0.715956 9400 LilyPond 12400 14.418259 14.876755 73.327055 845 Literate Haskell4472 0.183926 0.189268 0.928364 24085 Matlab 1780 0.006587 0.006711 0.033243 267726 Octave 1780 0.741758 0.803254 3.908348 2277 PHP (HTML) 335 0.035992 0.040895 0.195802 8554 POV-Ray 1122 0.166615 0.176342 0.865029 6485 Perl 778 0.148378 0.155054 0.766446 5075 PicAsm 6644 0.867737 0.905003 4.434172 7491 Pike 615 0.061074 0.063536 0.310041 9918 PostScript 4003 0.343840 0.368991 1.802020 11106 PureBasic 1693 0.477128 0.502840 2.460347 3440 Python 13785 1.915719 1.990107 9.803951 7030 Quake Script 3185 1.627181 1.788969 8.691964 1832 Ruby 12270 6.967698 7.283349 35.366903 1734 Scheme 4616 0.814956 0.832493 4.114942 5608 Spice 677 0.039076 0.043032 0.206566 16387 Stata 2948 0.269083 0.276156 1.366693 10785 Tcl/Tk 823 0.163508 0.167047 0.828285 4968 UnrealScript 6023 0.795100 0.808247 4.011780 7506 VRML 1516 0.152901 0.156947 0.774837 9782 XML 1467 0.061095 0.064263 0.311339 23559 xslt 3372 0.185278 0.189007 0.933720 18056 yacas 1037 0.101082 0.103750 0.511057 10145 Totals 274716 56.845864 59.368755 290.691494 4725 Averages 5723 1.184289 1.236849 6.056073 ====================================================