simple benchmark

gistfile1.py

import re
from timeit import timeit


def str_replace(s):
    """legacy HTML escape for non-unicode mode."""
    s = s.replace("&", "&") 
    s = s.replace(">", ">")  
    s = s.replace("<", "&lt;")  
    s = s.replace('"', "&#34;")
    s = s.replace("'", "&#39;")
    return s

xml_escapes = {
    '&': '&amp;',
    '>': '&gt;',
    '<': '&lt;',
    '"': '&#34;',   # also &quot; in html-only
    "'": '&#39;'    # also &apos; in html-only
}

LEGACY_HTML_ESCAPE_RE = re.compile(r'([&<"\'>])')

def re_sub(string):
    return LEGACY_HTML_ESCAPE_RE.sub(lambda m: xml_escapes[m.group()], string)

s = """
<a href="/georgexsh" title="George Xie"><img class="avatar avatar32" src="https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/1ae2e5f73c85f5dd836e3f9d1ccdc764?d=https%3A%2F%2Fd3oaxc4q5k2d6q.cloudfront.net%2Fm%2F8779a3c76276%2Fimg%2Fdefault_avatar%2F32%2Fuser_blue.png&amp;s=32" alt="George Xie avatar" /><span>George Xie</span></a>

              </li>
            </ol>
            <script id="no-reviewers-template" type="text/html">
  

<li>No reviewers</li>

</script>
          </div>
        </dd>
      </div>
      <div class="clearfix reviewers-group">
        <dt>
          Reviewers
        </dt>
        <dd class="participants">
          <ol class="clearfix">
            <li class="empty"></li>
          </ol>
        </dd>
      </div>
      <div class="clearfix description">
        <dt>Description</dt>
        
          <dd class="wiki-content">
            <p>they are equivalent</p>
          </dd>
        
      </div>
    </dl>
  </div>
  <div class="sidebar">
    <ul class="primary">
      <li class="created iconfont">
        <span class="aui-icon aui-icon-small aui-iconfont-time"></span>
        Created
        <time datetime="2013-03-21T04:11:00.407924+00:00" data-title="true">6 hours ago</time>
      </li>
      <li class="updated iconfont">
        <span class="aui-icon aui-icon-small aui-iconfont-time"></span>
        Updated
        <time datetime="2013-03-21T04:47:51.540289+00:00" data-title="true">5 hours ago</time>
      </li>
    </ul>
    <ul class="secondary">
      
        <li class="watch watching">
           

<a href="/zzzeek/mako/pull-request/4/follow"
  data-template="pullrequest-watch-template"
  data-type="pull request"
    class="follow following"
    title="Stop watching this pull request"> Stop watching
</a>

        </li>
        <script id="pullrequest-watch-template" type="text/html">
  

<a href="/zzzeek/mako/pull-request/4/follow"
  data-template="pullrequest-watch-template"
  data-type="pull request"
  [[#isFollowing]]
    class="follow following"
    title="Stop watching this pull request"> Stop watching
  [[/isFollowing]]
  [[^isFollowing]]
    class="follow"
    title="Watch this pull request"> Watch this pull request
  [[/isFollowing]]
</a>

</script>
      
      <li class="learn-more iconfont">
        <span class="aui-icon aui-icon-small aui-iconfont-help"></span>
        <a href="https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/BITBUCKET/Working+with+pull+requests" target="_blank">
          Learn about pull requests
        </a>
      </li>
    </ul>
  </div>
</header>
"""


def a():
    str_replace(s)

print 'a:', timeit('a()', setup='from __main__ import a', number=10000)


def b():
    re_sub(s)

print 'b:', timeit('b()', setup='from __main__ import b', number=10000)