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Performance Impact String vs StringBuilder

 
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Which is more efficient ( Apart from the Number of lines of code <img class="emoticon" src="images/emoticons/cool.gif" border="0" alt="" /> , does one create more String Objects than the other,
if its a multi-threaded program, does one consume more memory than the other. Please Advice

//email uid validity.

StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
sb.append("http://");
sb.append(user);
sb.append("@");
sb.append(host);
sb.append("/");
sb.append(encoding);
sb.append(";POST=");
sb.append(decoding);
sb.append("/;SID=");

System.out.println( sb.toString() );



versus

String httpReq = "http://" + user + "@" + host + "/" + encoding + ";POST=" + decoding + "/;SID=";
System.out.println( "... The HTTP Request ..." httpReq);



Thanks Much
_ddt
 
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Steven,
The StringBuilder one is slightly more efficient and uses less memory. In practice, it is unlikely to make enough of a difference to matter either way.

[edited to fix typo]
[ March 11, 2008: Message edited by: Jeanne Boyarsky ]
 
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This is a classic premature optimization.
Its also why there is a Formatter object in Java, so you can write generalized code to do the parameter substitution.

There are far more important things to worry about.
 
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Originally posted by Pat Farrell:
This is a classic premature optimization.



You don't know this, as the original poster has not told us the context. If the code is executed millions of times, the optimisation could be worthwhile.

I agree with your sentiment, though. Mostly, these things don't have any noticeable effect and simply distract from more-important considerations, like correct operation and readable code.
 
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Originally posted by Jeanne Boyarsky:
Steven,
The StringBuilder one is slightly more efficient and uses less memory. In practice, it is unlikely to make enough of a difference to matter either way.



That is, in fact, not true. As far as I know, every (post Java 4) compiler will compile the expression



to



- which certainly shouldn't be slower than writing virtually the same code manually.
 
Pat Farrell
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Originally posted by Peter Chase:
You don't know this, as the original poster has not told us the context.



Yes, you are correct. I bet a non-trivial amount of money that the context will show that this is a premature optimization.

And as an example, it ignores the fundamental process of compiler and JVM improvements, that each succeeding version does a better job at recognizing equivalent constructs, and generates the same optimization for them. Thus as time goes forward, trivial differences merge towards being unmeasurable, and then they go away.
 
Jeanne Boyarsky
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Originally posted by Ilja Preuss:
That is, in fact, not true. As far as I know, every (post Java 4) compiler will compile the expression


Interesting. Forums are nice. If you post something not true, someone tells you!
 
Ilja Preuss
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Originally posted by Jeanne Boyarsky:

Interesting. Forums are nice. If you post something not true, someone tells you!




 
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Originally posted by Ilja Preuss:
   



Oh, yes yes yes ! And PC taking on PF in a performance forum. This is gonna be Fun, Fun Fun ! till daddy takes the T-Bird away !

This I gotta see.
 
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From the other end of the performance scale, I'm still trying to decide which of the two versions is more readable. I think both of the versions in the original example are equally ugly and unreadable (and no, I don't have a better idea). But if the text fragments being agglomerated included escaped quotes and apostrophes, I think I would find the StringBuilder version more readable than the a+b+c version. Any opinions?
 
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Personally I find the version using + to be more readable, even if it has escaped quotes. But I suppose that's an acquired taste. Concatenation and escapes are so common in Java, I get used to reading stuff written that way.
 
Nicholas Jordan
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Context is MT - coding style is flattened by compiler. Context becomes ( possibly ) readable code. Classic premature optimization issue resolves on whether one or the other facilitates correctness for coder by reducing lost details such as unescaped backspace in regex's and so on.

[Jeanne Boyarsky:]   Interesting. Forums are nice. If you post something not true, someone tells you!

Plural of forum is fora.

[Paul Clapham:]   I'm still trying to decide which of the two versions is more readable.

Read Reliability is what the coder can read. Poster asks does one create more String Objects than the other, the answer to which is no. Poster also asks: does one consume more memory than the other The answer to which is premature optimization, unless this is a core loop on a time - intensive / heavy - workload application, in which case both approaches should be harnessed in a profiler and decision made on that.
[ March 14, 2008: Message edited by: Nicholas Jordan ]
 
Pat Farrell
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Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
Personally I find the version using + to be more readable, even if it has escaped quotes. .



Its a personal style thing, I generally like + for string concat, but dislike them when you have to mangle escapes and funky characters. Some of this may just be my personal exposure to trying to internationalize copy. Its really hard to do other languages with all the ""@"\" stuff.
 
Ilja Preuss
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What about
 
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<<ats fine but why adding the records in batches adds to performance? Any particular reason for this?? >>
There is probably no one answer for all backends and jdbc drivers. I have tested this with sybase as a backend. In general with batches there is less work and less network IO.

For example if you commit (even if the commit is implicit) after each row the server must do its overhead for committing and communicate this information back to the client once for each row. If this work is done once per batch vs once per row it is less work on server, client, and network. Performance differences can be significant.

I would suggest you do a test in your environment and measure to see if it makes a difference for you. Post the results too.
 
Nicholas Jordan
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Steven, are you following this ?
 
Jim Yingst
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[B][Ilja]: What about
[/B]

It's slower than using either + concatenation or a StringBuilder. But like most performance issues, that really doesn't matter most of the time . In terms of readability, I think it's just slightly less readable in this particular example, but often it works out to be more readable. And of course it depends on how familiar the programmer is with format specifiers.
 
Nicholas Jordan
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What about:


By passing the matter to the server where code path analysis should be commonplace and well understood, we can contemplate new syntax coloring schemes.
 
steve souza
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I posted to the wrong thread.
 
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Originally posted by Pat Farrell:
This is a classic premature optimization.



And what does that expression exactly mean to you?
.- That you should wait until you have problems with performance before going to your code trying to optimize it, otherwise you don't change anything ?
.- Or after you finish coding your software and it works, you go through thousands of lines looking for ways to optimize it?

It looks like you meant that one shouldn't worry about this unless you have problems with the performance.
 
steve souza
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<<It looks like you meant that one shouldn't worry about this unless you have problems with the performance.>>
Correct. A full quote that is well known in p&t circles is: "premature optimization is the root of all evil". google it to read more about the concept.
 
Pat Farrell
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Originally posted by Jose Monzon:
It looks like you meant that one shouldn't worry about this unless you have problems with the performance.



Exactly. Get it working first. Write clean code that is easy to understand.
If the system is slow once it works, instrument it. You don't need to be as crude as zillions of printf statements, Netbeans and Eclipse have nice performance tools built in.

Find where it is slow, look in more detail, find the 1% of the code that is causing the slowness. Fix that, ignore all the other possible optimizations.

I have found that I can always, *always*, improve performance by 50%. I can do it as many times as needed. But worrying about performance before it works is a wasted effort.

For one thing, the PHB will change the specs before you get it finished, so you may prematurely optimize code that is thrown away with the PHB's changes.
 
Nicholas Jordan
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Get some code working first, then do not wait for problems. Optomization sometimes is in the form of making the codebase more readable or understandable. Small, tight code should only be done on areas found by a profiler. Many code tools are well known and available for free - just google your way along on the matter.
 
Ilja Preuss
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Originally posted by Pat Farrell:

I have found that I can always, *always*, improve performance by 50%. I can do it as many times as needed. But worrying about performance before it works is a wasted effort.



+1

I once improved the performance of an algorithm by 90% by just changing one line of code. It took me half an hour to find that line of code, and I would never have even guessed that it was this line without running the algorithm through a profiler.
 
Pat Farrell
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Originally posted by Ilja Preuss:
It took me half an hour to find that line of code, and I would never have even guessed that it was this line without running the algorithm through a profiler.



Notice I didn't claim that I could improve proformance by 50% in a few minutes. :-) Sometimes it takes a long time, but you can always do it. Sometimes you have to replace the algorithms or data structures, or even not call the database.

Speaking of databases, not calling a database is the most reliable way to improve performance. Much faster than optimizing 1000 lines of code.
 
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