I need to walk through a folder with approximately ten thousand files. My old vbscript is very slow in handling this. Since I've started using Ruby and Python since then, I made a benchmark between the three scripting languages to see which would be the best fit for this job.

The results of the tests below on a subset of 4500 files on a shared network are

Python: 106 seconds
Ruby: 5 seconds
Vbscript: 124 seconds

That Vbscript would be slowest was no surprise but I can't explain the difference between Ruby and Python. Is my test for Python not optimal? Is there a faster way to do this in Python?

The test for thumbs.db is just for the test, in reality there are more tests to do.

I needed something that checks every file on the path and doesn't produce too much output to not disturb the timing. The results are a bit different each run but not by much.

#python2.7.0
import os

def recurse(path):
  for (path, dirs, files) in os.walk(path):
    for file in files:
      if file.lower() == "thumbs.db":
        print (path+'/'+file)

if __name__ == '__main__':
  import timeit
  path = '//server/share/folder/'
  print(timeit.timeit('recurse("'+path+'")', setup="from __main__ import recurse", number=1))

'vbscript5.7
set oFso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
const path = "\\server\share\folder"
start = Timer
myLCfilename="thumbs.db"

sub recurse(folder)
  for each file in folder.Files
    if lCase(file.name) = myLCfilename then
      wscript.echo file
    end if
  next
  for each subfolder in folder.SubFolders
    call Recurse(subfolder)
  next
end Sub

set folder = oFso.getFolder(path)
recurse(folder)
wscript.echo Timer-start

#ruby1.9.3
require 'benchmark'

def recursive(path, bench)
  bench.report(path) do
    Dir["#{path}/**/**"].each{|file| puts file if File.basename(file).downcase == "thumbs.db
python ruby vbscript benchmarking
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