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Ran the included katebench.pl on a machine with:
Athlon 64 X2 4200+ processor, 1 Gb DDR2 RAM.
SuSE 10.1
perl v5.8.8 built for x86_64-linux-thread-multi

perl -Mblib bin/katebench.pl yielded following result:

====================================================
BENCHMARK REPORT FOR Sybtax::Highlight::Engine::Kate
====================================================

Report for \$kate->highlight, done 5 iterations.

language        size        min         max         total       throughput
                testfile    time        time        time        (bytes/second)

.desktop        369         0.017896    0.041712    0.114448    16120
AHDL            566         0.125456    0.279731    0.786463    3598
ASP             1485        0.260784    0.561476    1.615621    4595
AVR Assembler   6644        0.421711    0.436861    2.149667    15453
AWK             437         0.024925    0.026933    0.127714    17108
Bash            3607        0.703043    0.720531    3.566455    5056
BibTeX          538         0.039291    0.040789    0.200558    13412
C++             99507       14.953728   15.450683   75.859512   6558
CMake           1499        0.120126    0.124442    0.608373    12319
CSS             672         0.040468    0.044551    0.210520    15960
Clipper         1194        0.226911    0.235738    1.152528    5179
Common Lisp     816         0.165443    0.181320    0.877062    4651
Doxygen         11010       0.888967    0.929259    4.566993    12053
Eiffel          2033        0.211583    0.218824    1.070320    9497
Euphoria        2172        0.355813    0.370958    1.811855    5993
Fortran         5548        1.807723    1.878556    9.257825    2996
GLSL            1072        0.074047    0.076420    0.376737    14227
HTML            19152       1.267261    1.315438    6.463549    14815
Haskell         4472        0.342871    0.356339    1.758350    12716
Intel x86 (NASM)6644        0.838284    0.875227    4.304778    7717
JSP             5570        0.797113    0.858184    4.186729    6651
Java            6515        1.371275    1.501784    7.279859    4474
JavaScript      3399        0.283587    0.300165    1.460806    11633
LaTeX           1108        0.065724    0.067669    0.334383    16567
Lex/Flex        1346        0.140861    0.148026    0.718658    9364
LilyPond        12400       14.286850   14.738266   72.540980   854
Literate Haskell4472        0.176976    0.180912    0.893610    25022
Matlab          1780        0.006586    0.007632    0.034442    258405
Octave          1780        0.731120    0.798107    3.861955    2304
PHP (HTML)      335         0.038921    0.042895    0.201134    8327
POV-Ray         1122        0.161725    0.172074    0.843192    6653
Perl            778         0.146464    0.154737    0.759779    5119
PicAsm          6644        0.852943    0.886777    4.353768    7630
Pike            615         0.059906    0.062702    0.303955    10116
PostScript      4003        0.327717    0.354577    1.731682    11558
PureBasic       1693        0.474221    0.493794    2.436093    3474
Python          13785       1.874065    1.957159    9.583413    7192
Quake Script    3185        1.610513    1.774066    8.655501    1839
Ruby            12270       6.162694    6.424011    31.357799   1956
Scheme          4616        0.800743    0.820531    4.048291    5701
Spice           677         0.038337    0.041246    0.197985    17097
Stata           2948        0.260329    0.270642    1.333262    11055
Tcl/Tk          823         0.161246    0.164940    0.815275    5047
UnrealScript    6023        0.772178    0.789817    3.914150    7693
VRML            1516        0.149400    0.152703    0.755984    10026
XML             1467        0.057861    0.060277    0.296679    24723
xslt            3372        0.176137    0.181484    0.888863    18968
yacas           1037        0.098742    0.100638    0.499157    10387

Totals          274716      54.970565   57.671602   281.166710  4885
Averages        5723        1.145220    1.201492    5.857640
====================================================

Report for \$kate->highlightText, done 5 iterations.

language        size        min         max         total       throughput
                testfile    time        time        time        (bytes/second)

.desktop        369         0.018614    0.042220    0.118609    15555
AHDL            566         0.126599    0.282289    0.794583    3561
ASP             1485        0.259915    0.269348    1.328664    5588
AVR Assembler   6644        0.437913    0.455206    2.235716    14858
AWK             437         0.025510    0.027433    0.132392    16504
Bash            3607        0.708762    0.728163    3.609764    4996
BibTeX          538         0.040542    0.041899    0.205663    13079
C++             99507       15.523637   16.054039   79.040251   6294
CMake           1499        0.121297    0.127037    0.618008    12127
CSS             672         0.042209    0.044905    0.218604    15370
Clipper         1194        0.229625    0.240095    1.170711    5099
Common Lisp     816         0.169377    0.184814    0.897525    4545
Doxygen         11010       0.908975    0.946329    4.661227    11810
Eiffel          2033        0.214556    0.221103    1.088299    9340
Euphoria        2172        0.361649    0.379297    1.845967    5883
Fortran         5548        1.816038    1.904576    9.308223    2980
GLSL            1072        0.076500    0.079918    0.391169    13702
HTML            19152       1.312297    1.366687    6.684365    14325
Haskell         4472        0.354832    0.369188    1.821068    12278
Intel x86 (NASM)6644        0.853720    0.896656    4.376061    7591
JSP             5570        0.812898    0.877496    4.269827    6522
Java            6515        1.387593    1.512067    7.363857    4423
JavaScript      3399        0.290250    0.307326    1.494043    11375
LaTeX           1108        0.068213    0.072358    0.348039    15917
Lex/Flex        1346        0.140373    0.146290    0.715956    9400
LilyPond        12400       14.418259   14.876755   73.327055   845
Literate Haskell4472        0.183926    0.189268    0.928364    24085
Matlab          1780        0.006587    0.006711    0.033243    267726
Octave          1780        0.741758    0.803254    3.908348    2277
PHP (HTML)      335         0.035992    0.040895    0.195802    8554
POV-Ray         1122        0.166615    0.176342    0.865029    6485
Perl            778         0.148378    0.155054    0.766446    5075
PicAsm          6644        0.867737    0.905003    4.434172    7491
Pike            615         0.061074    0.063536    0.310041    9918
PostScript      4003        0.343840    0.368991    1.802020    11106
PureBasic       1693        0.477128    0.502840    2.460347    3440
Python          13785       1.915719    1.990107    9.803951    7030
Quake Script    3185        1.627181    1.788969    8.691964    1832
Ruby            12270       6.967698    7.283349    35.366903   1734
Scheme          4616        0.814956    0.832493    4.114942    5608
Spice           677         0.039076    0.043032    0.206566    16387
Stata           2948        0.269083    0.276156    1.366693    10785
Tcl/Tk          823         0.163508    0.167047    0.828285    4968
UnrealScript    6023        0.795100    0.808247    4.011780    7506
VRML            1516        0.152901    0.156947    0.774837    9782
XML             1467        0.061095    0.064263    0.311339    23559
xslt            3372        0.185278    0.189007    0.933720    18056
yacas           1037        0.101082    0.103750    0.511057    10145

Totals          274716      56.845864   59.368755   290.691494  4725
Averages        5723        1.184289    1.236849    6.056073
====================================================