Potential performance improvement for java.util.AbstractList?

[Langer, Christoph]

Hi all,

a Java application developer of our company has indicated that it might yield 
some performance benefit to modify the coding of 
java.util.AbstractList.equals() that it would first compare the size of the 
lists before iterating the elements. It would for sure be better in cases where 
one compares lists which don't have the same size. In case of comparing "equal" 
lists it would add some minor cost, though.

Currently the implementation is like this:

public boolean equals(Object o) {
        if (o == this)
            return true;
        if (!(o instanceof List))
            return false;

        ListIterator<E> e1 = listIterator();
        ListIterator<?> e2 = ((List<?>) o).listIterator();
        while (e1.hasNext() && e2.hasNext()) {
            E o1 = e1.next();
            Object o2 = e2.next();
            if (!(o1==null ? o2==null : o1.equals(o2)))
                return false;
        }
        return !(e1.hasNext() || e2.hasNext());
    }

One could do for instance:


public boolean equals(Object o) {

        if (o == this)

            return true;

        if (!(o instanceof List))

            return false;

        if ((List<?>)o).size() != size())

            return false;



        ListIterator<E> e1 = listIterator();

        ListIterator<?> e2 = ((List<?>) o).listIterator();

        while (e1.hasNext() && e2.hasNext()) {

            E o1 = e1.next();

            Object o2 = e2.next();

            if (!(o1==null ? o2==null : o1.equals(o2)))

                return false;

        }

        return !(e1.hasNext() || e2.hasNext());

    }

How would you assess this idea? Are there other drawbacks/showstoppers to this 
which I don't see?

Thanks in advance for comments.

Best regards
Christoph