What really stinks about using a StringBuffer (and therefore the +
operator) is that append's are synchronized!! To really see an impact on
performance, use a custom string buffer class that is not thread safe and
use StringBuffers only where thead safety is required.
Regards,
--mike
On Fri, 26 Oct 2001, Sylvain Wallez wrote:
>
> Berin Loritsch a écrit :
> >
> > Friends, going through the source code looking for
> > places to optimize the critical path (i.e. the path
> > taken when no error or log message is performed),
> > I went through adding StringBuffers where there were
> > three or more strings to concatenate.
> >
> > I found an enigma.
> >
> > In several places, where the code was already using
> > a StringBuffer, I found code snippets like this:
> >
> > buffer.append("<" + prefix + ":" + name + "/>");
> >
> > This gets expanded into the much more complex code as
> > follows:
> >
> > buffer.append(
> > new StringBuffer(
> > new StringBuffer(
> > new StringBuffer(
> > new StringBuffer("<").append(prefix).toString()
> > ).append(":").toString()
> > ).append(name).toString()
> > ).append("/>").toString()
> > );
> >
> > That means four additional StringBuffers were created
> > behind the scenes. This is ludicrous when we are already
> > using StringBuffers--and wasteful of resources.
> >
> > Instead, please write the code to explicitly take advantage
> > of the StringBuffer when it is available:
> >
> > buffer.append("<").append(prefix).append(":").append(name).append("/>");
> >
> > This is more respectful of the environment, and is much quicker
> > to execute on any JVM.
> >
> > Please, be mindful in the future.
>
> Berin,
>
> Having once looked at the generated bytecode for string concatenation, I
> came to the conclusion that replacing "+" on Strings by append() on
> StringBuffers is really not worth it as far as performance is concerned,
> apart of course in the above case which involves concatenation in
> appends (and a strange compiler behaviour).
>
> Take the following example. The two methods do exactly the same thing,
> one with String concatenation, and the other one with
> StringBuffer.append().
>
> package proto;
> public class TestSBuff {
>
> public void test1(int i, String msg) {
> System.out.println("The value "
> + "of i is "
> + i
> + " and the value of msg is '"
> + msg
> + "'");
> }
>
> public void test2(int i, String msg) {
> System.out.println(new StringBuffer("The value ")
> .append("of i is ")
> .append(i)
> .append(" and the value of msg is '")
> .append(msg)
> .append("'")
> .toString());
> }
> }
>
> Here's the resulting bytecode, output with javap -c :
>
> Compiled from TestSBuff.java
> public class proto.TestSBuff extends java.lang.Object {
> public proto.TestSBuff();
> public void test1(int, java.lang.String);
> public void test2(int, java.lang.String);
> }
>
> Method proto.TestSBuff()
> 0 aload_0
> 1 invokespecial #1 <Method java.lang.Object()>
> 4 return
>
> Method void test1(int, java.lang.String)
> 0 getstatic #2 <Field java.io.PrintStream out>
> 3 new #3 <Class java.lang.StringBuffer>
> 6 dup
> 7 invokespecial #4 <Method java.lang.StringBuffer()>
> 10 ldc #5 <String "The value of i is ">
> 12 invokevirtual #6 <Method java.lang.StringBuffer
> append(java.lang.String)>
> 15 iload_1
> 16 invokevirtual #7 <Method java.lang.StringBuffer append(int)>
> 19 ldc #8 <String " and the value of msg is '">
> 21 invokevirtual #6 <Method java.lang.StringBuffer
> append(java.lang.String)>
> 24 aload_2
> 25 invokevirtual #6 <Method java.lang.StringBuffer
> append(java.lang.String)>
> 28 ldc #9 <String "'">
> 30 invokevirtual #6 <Method java.lang.StringBuffer
> append(java.lang.String)>
> 33 invokevirtual #10 <Method java.lang.String toString()>
> 36 invokevirtual #11 <Method void println(java.lang.String)>
> 39 return
>
> Method void test2(int, java.lang.String)
> 0 getstatic #2 <Field java.io.PrintStream out>
> 3 new #3 <Class java.lang.StringBuffer>
> 6 dup
> 7 ldc #12 <String "The value ">
> 9 invokespecial #13 <Method java.lang.StringBuffer(java.lang.String)>
> 12 ldc #14 <String "of i is ">
> 14 invokevirtual #6 <Method java.lang.StringBuffer
> append(java.lang.String)>
> 17 iload_1
> 18 invokevirtual #7 <Method java.lang.StringBuffer append(int)>
> 21 ldc #8 <String " and the value of msg is '">
> 23 invokevirtual #6 <Method java.lang.StringBuffer
> append(java.lang.String)>
> 26 aload_2
> 27 invokevirtual #6 <Method java.lang.StringBuffer
> append(java.lang.String)>
> 30 ldc #9 <String "'">
> 32 invokevirtual #6 <Method java.lang.StringBuffer
> append(java.lang.String)>
> 35 invokevirtual #10 <Method java.lang.String toString()>
> 38 invokevirtual #11 <Method void println(java.lang.String)>
> 41 return
>
> Two things are shown above :
>
> * String concatenation is translated to StringBuffer.append()
> instructions. The only difference with direct StringBuffer code is that
> the default no-arg StringBuffer() constructor is called and the first
> string is appended like others. I'm not sure this small benefit
> justifies the decreased code readability (and the increased keyboard
> typing ;)
>
> * Constant String concatenation (like "The value " + "of i is ") isn't
> translated to individual StringBuffer.append(), but to a single String
> constant ("The value of i is "). In that case, performance is better
> with String concatenation. This means some of the changes you made on
> code where constant strings are concatenated to allow line-splitting
> (see for example WildcardURIMatcherFactory) are in fact slowing down the
> code !
>
> The conclusion is that StringBuffer is only worth it when the
> concatenation occurs in several statements, or iteratively such as in a
> "for" loop. Otherwhise, single-statement String concatenations can be
> considered equivalent to their StringBuffer translation, but produce
> less readable code.
>
> Sylvain.
>
> --
> Sylvain Wallez
> Anyware Technologies - http://www.anyware-tech.com
>
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