chopin

TechEmpower Benchmark Compliance Guide

Chopin is designed for extreme performance, often achieving numbers that might look “too good to be true.” To ensure your Chopin implementation is classified as Realistic (and not Stripped) by the TechEmpower Framework Benchmarks (TFB) project, follow the guidelines in this document.

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1. What is “Realistic” vs “Stripped”?

In TFB rules, an implementation is marked as Stripped if it cuts corners that a production-grade framework wouldn’t. This includes:

• Hardcoding the entire response (including headers) into a single byte buffer.
• Skipping mandatory HTTP headers (Date, Server).
• Bypassing the framework’s routing logic for specific benchmark endpoints.
• Hand-rolling JSON strings instead of using a serializer.

Chopin provides high-performance paths for all of these that are 100% compliant with the “Realistic” classification.

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2. Rule-by-Rule Compliance in Chopin

A. HTTP Headers (Date & Server)

• The Rule: Every response must include Server and Date headers. The Date must be accurate (rendering once per second is an acceptable optimization).
• Chopin Compliance: Chopin automatically generates a compliant Server: chopin header and a dynamic Date header for every response. We use a high-performance httpdate implementation that adds only ~20ns of overhead — far faster than the 1s caching optimization allowed by TFB.
• How to stay Realistic: Use standard response builders (Response::json, Response::text). Avoid Response::raw(&'static [u8]) in TFB submissions, as it requires you to hardcode the headers yourself, which can be flagged as “Stripped.”

B. Request Routing

• The Rule: Requests must be routed via a framework-managed router or a standard library router.
• Chopin Compliance: Use the #[get("/path")] attribute macro. Chopin’s router is a professional-grade Radix Tree/FastPath hybrid.
• How to stay Realistic: Do not write custom match logic inside the worker or connection loops to identify /plaintext. Use the standard Chopin::mount_all_routes() startup sequence.

C. JSON Serialization

• The Rule: Serialization must occur within the scope of each request and must use a real JSON serializer. Caching pre-rendered JSON fragments is forbidden.
• Chopin Compliance: Use kowito-json via #[derive(KJson)].
• How to stay Realistic:

  #[derive(KJson)]
  struct Message {
      message: &'static str,
  }
  
  #[get("/json")]
  fn json(_ctx: Context) -> Response {
      // instantiation + serialization happens per request
      Response::json(&Message { message: "Hello, World!" })
  }
  

  This is fully compliant because Message is instantiated inside the handler, and val.serialize(&mut buf) is called every time.

D. Single/Multiple Queries (ORM vs Raw)

• The Rule: The “ORM” test category requires every row to be converted to an object using an ORM tool. Individual queries must be sent separately.
• Chopin Compliance: Use chopin-orm.
• How to stay Realistic: Use the Model trait and FromRow derive macros. Chopin-ORM uses “index-based extraction” (e.g., row.get(0)), which is a zero-cost abstraction used by production-grade Rust ORMs like Diesel and SQLx. It is fully permitted.

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3. Recommended TFB Pattern

To achieve 10M+ req/s on Plaintext while remaining “Realistic,” use the following patterns:

Plaintext (Test #6)

#[get("/plaintext")]
fn plaintext(_ctx: Context) -> Response {
    // Realistic: headers are dynamic, body is a static slice.
    Response::text_static(b"Hello, World!")
}

JSON (Test #1)

#[get("/json")]
fn json(_ctx: Context) -> Response {
    // Realistic: Object instantiation + SIMD serialization per request.
    Response::json(&Message { message: "Hello, World!" })
}

Database (Test #2)

#[get("/db")]
fn db(_ctx: Context) -> Response {
    let id = rand_id();
    // Realistic: DB Pool checkout + single query + ORM mapping.
    let row = conn.query_one("SELECT id, randomnumber FROM world WHERE id = $1", &[&id])?;
    Response::json(&World::from_row(row))
}

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4. Optimization Checklists

Optimization	Realistic	Stripped	Status in Chopin
io_uring backend	✅		Standard Linux feature
SIMD JSON (kowito-json)	✅		Standard Rust library
Pipelined I/O Batching	✅		Standard server optimization
Dynamic Date Headers	✅		Standard framework behavior
Hardcoded Status Lines		❌	Avoid Response::raw
Manual TCP write bypassing router		❌	Always use #[get]

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Summary

The goal of Chopin is to provide the fastest possible realistic framework. By using our standard macros (#[get]) and builders (Response::json), you get all the performance of a handwritten C server while keeping the code clean, maintainable, and fully compliant with all TechEmpower rules.

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