Testing a PPM Repository for Speed

NateTut has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I've been playing around with PPM::Repositories and it seems to work OK (although PPM::AddRepository() didn't), but some repositories are faster than others. When they are all added to ppm searches SLOW WAY DOWN.

What I'm contemplating is a way to test the site before adding it so I don't add any dogs. Here is what I have so far (just lists the repositories) what I need are ideas on testing repository response time.

Thanks

use strict;
use warnings;
use PPM;
use PPM::Repositories;

#
# Print out all *Active* repositories for perl 5.8.x
#
for my $rep ( keys %Repositories )
   {
   next unless $Repositories{$rep}->{Active};
   next unless grep { $_ == 5.8 } @{ $Repositories{$rep}->{PerlV} };
   
   print("rep add $rep $Repositories{$rep}->{location}\n");
   }
[download]

Update:
Since these are just web sites are there any HTTP modules that might help?

Comment on Testing a PPM Repository for Speed Select or Download Code

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Re: Testing a PPM Repository for Speed by CountZero (Bishop) on Apr 05, 2006 at 21:21 UTC
Interesting, but as with all things on the Internet, sometimes it's fast, sometimes it slows down to a crawl and there is no rhyme or reason to it, so you would really need to run your speed test many times and average over it. I would run a PPM::InstallPackage(``package'' => $package, ``location'' => $location, ``root'' => $root); command on each of your repositories, noting the time it took to finish it and then remove (PPM::RemovePackage(``package'' => $package, ``force'' => $force)) the package again before testing the next repo. Other than the download speed, you should also test the search speed of the repository, but strangely enough I did not find an obvious function for it ??? CountZero "If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler." - Conway's Law	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Testing a PPM Repository for Speed by randyk (Parson) on Apr 06, 2006 at 00:15 UTC
Repositories that have `summary.ppm` and `searchsummary.ppm` summary files of available packages, and use those for searches, will be noticeably faster. The PPM distribution on CPAN has an example of how to set this up.	[reply]
Re: Testing a PPM Repository for Speed by QM (Parson) on Apr 06, 2006 at 02:51 UTC
Could you rewrite `ppm3?` to use fork/thread, and check all the repositories simultaneously? Would this help? -QM -- Quantum Mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Testing a PPM Repository for Speed by NateTut (Deacon) on Apr 06, 2006 at 14:20 UTC
Thanks for the tips!	[reply] [d/l]