forksta

🏁 Forksta – Lightweight CLI Benchmarking

Forksta is a fast, lightweight, cross-platform benchmarking tool for programs and scripts. Written in C for maximum performance, Forksta is ideal for quick performance analysis, metric collection, and optional visualization via Python.

📊 Perfect for developers who want system-level benchmarking without heavy setup.

⚙️ Features

🔁 Run multiple times with --runs
⏱️ Metrics for Real Time, CPU Time, Memory (RSS), and Exit Codes
📉 Optional: Visualization via Heatmap, Table, Plot, or List
🧪 Compare two programs (--compare --with)
🧵 Support for Python scripts (-py)
📄 Export results to CSV or JSON
💡 .conf file support for configuration

🚀 Quickstart

forksta -a --runs 5 ./my_program arg1 arg2
forksta -r --visual --compare ./my_exec --with -py ./my_script.py

Without --visual, output is shown as a simple list in the terminal.

📦 Installation

Windows via Scoop:

scoop add bucket forksta-bucket https://github.com/konni332/forksta-bucket
scoop install forksta

Compile using any C compiler (GCC, Clang, MSVC).

gcc -o forksta forksta.c

Dependencies

Feature	Dependency
`-py`	Python ≥ 3.7
`--visual`	`colorama` (via pip)

pip install colorama

🧩 Options

Usage: forksta [options] <program> [args...] [--with <program> [args...]]

Options:
  -r                 Show real time (default)
  -c                 Show CPU user/sys time
  -m                 Show max RSS (memory usage)
  -e                 Show exit code
  -a                 Show all metrics
  -py              * Specifies a .py program
  --runs N           Run the program N times (default: 1)
  --timeout SEC      Kill the program after SEC seconds
  --timeout-m M      Kill the program after M minutes
  --dump csv         Dump results to benchmark_results.csv
  --dump json        Dump results to benchmark_results.json
  --help             Show help message and exit
  --version          Show version and exit
  --dependencies     Show dependencies and exit
  --visual         * Visualize output using forksta.conf
  --compare --with   Compare two benchmarks

* see dependencies

🗂️ Visualization & Configuration

Visualization is controlled via an optional forksta.conf file, which defines:

Number of benchmark runs (runs)
Number of warm-up runs
Visualization style (heatmap, plot, table, list)

🔍 Config file locations:

OS	Path
Windows	Same folder as `forksta.exe`
Linux	`~/.config/forksta/`
macOS	`~/Library/Application Support/forksta/`

💡 Example `forksta.conf`

[DEFAULT]
runs = 5
warmup = 1
visual = TABLE

📚 License

❗ Notes

Forksta is a hobby project and under active development. Bugs may occur – feedback is welcome!