Java performance of StringBuilder in a loop

Question

I've a performance related question regarding use of StringBuilder. In a very long loop I'm manipulating a StringBuilder and passing it to another method like this:

for (loop condition) {
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    sb.append("some string");
    . . .
    sb.append(anotherString);
    . . .
    passToMethod(sb.toString());
}

Is instantiating StringBuilder at every loop cycle is a good solution? And is calling a delete instead better, like the following?

StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
for (loop condition) {
    sb.delete(0, sb.length);
    sb.append("some string");
    . . .
    sb.append(anotherString);
    . . .
    passToMethod(sb.toString());
}

Answer 1

The modern JVM is really smart about stuff like this. I would not second guess it and do something hacky that is less maintainable/readable...unless you do proper bench marks with production data that validate a non-trivial performance improvement (and document it ;)

Answer 2

Alas I'm on C# normally, I think that clearing a StringBuilder weights more than instanciating a new one.

Answer 3

In the philosophy of writing solid code its always better to put your StringBuilder inside your loop. This way it doesnt go outside the code its intended for.

Secondly the biggest improvment in StringBuilder comes from giving it an initial size to avoid it growing bigger while the loop runs

for (loop condition) {
  StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(4096);
}

Answer 4

Based on my experience with developing software on Windows I would say clearing the StringBuilder out during your loop has better performance than instantiating a StringBuilder with each iteration. Clearing it frees that memory to be overwritten immediately with no additional allocation required. I'm not familiar enough with the Java garbage collector, but I would think that freeing and no reallocation (unless your next string grows the StringBuilder) is more beneficial than instantiation.

(My opinion is contrary to what everyone else is suggesting. Hmm. Time to benchmark it.)

Answer 5

The second one is about 25% faster in my mini-benchmark.

public class ScratchPad {

    static String a;

    public static void main( String[] args ) throws Exception {
        long time = System.currentTimeMillis();
        for( int i = 0; i < 10000000; i++ ) {
            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
            sb.append( "someString" );
            sb.append( "someString2"+i );
            sb.append( "someStrin4g"+i );
            sb.append( "someStr5ing"+i );
            sb.append( "someSt7ring"+i );
            a = sb.toString();
        }
        System.out.println( System.currentTimeMillis()-time );
        time = System.currentTimeMillis();
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
        for( int i = 0; i < 10000000; i++ ) {
            sb.delete( 0, sb.length() );
            sb.append( "someString" );
            sb.append( "someString2"+i );
            sb.append( "someStrin4g"+i );
            sb.append( "someStr5ing"+i );
            sb.append( "someSt7ring"+i );
            a = sb.toString();
        }
        System.out.println( System.currentTimeMillis()-time );
    }
}

Results:

25265
17969

Note that this is with JRE 1.6.0_07.

---

Based on Jon Skeet's ideas in the edit, here's version 2. Same results though. So stop upvoting the people saying #1 is faster. :)

public class ScratchPad {

    static String a;

    public static void main( String[] args ) throws Exception {
        long time = System.currentTimeMillis();
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
        for( int i = 0; i < 10000000; i++ ) {
            sb.delete( 0, sb.length() );
            sb.append( "someString" );
            sb.append( "someString2" );
            sb.append( "someStrin4g" );
            sb.append( "someStr5ing" );
            sb.append( "someSt7ring" );
            a = sb.toString();
        }
        System.out.println( System.currentTimeMillis()-time );
        time = System.currentTimeMillis();
        for( int i = 0; i < 10000000; i++ ) {
            StringBuilder sb2 = new StringBuilder();
            sb2.append( "someString" );
            sb2.append( "someString2" );
            sb2.append( "someStrin4g" );
            sb2.append( "someStr5ing" );
            sb2.append( "someSt7ring" );
            a = sb2.toString();
        }
        System.out.println( System.currentTimeMillis()-time );
    }
}

Results:

5016
7516

Answer 6

Okay, I now understand what's going on, and it does make sense.

I was under the impression that toString just passed the underlying char[] into a String constructor which didn't take a copy. A copy would then be made on the next "write" operation (e.g. delete). I believe this was the case with StringBuffer in some previous version. (It isn't now.) But no - toString just passes the array (and index and length) to the public String constructor which takes a copy.

So in the "reuse the StringBuilder" case we genuinely create one copy of the data per string, using the same char array in the buffer the whole time. Obviously creating a new StringBuilder each time creates a new underlying buffer - and then that buffer is copied (somewhat pointlessly, in our particular case, but done for safety reasons) when creating a new string.

All this leads to the second version definitely being more efficient - but at the same time I'd still say it's uglier code.

(EDIT: I've now deleted my other answer as irrelevant and unhelpful.)

Answer 7

Declare once, and assign each time. It is a more pragmatic and reusable concept than an optimization.

Answer 8

The first is better for humans. If the second is a bit faster on some versions of some JVMs, so what?

If performance is that critical, bypass StringBuilder and write your own. If you're a good programmer, and take into account how your app is using this function, you should be able to make it even faster. Worthwhile? Probably not.

Why is this question stared as "favorite question"? Because performance optimization is so much fun, no matter whether it is practical or not.

Answer 9

Since I don't think it's been pointed out yet, because of optimizations built into the Sun Java compiler, which automatically creates StringBuilders (StringBuffers pre-J2SE 5.0) when it sees String concatenations, the first example in the question is equivalent to:

for (loop condition) {
  String s = "some string";
  . . .
  s += anotherString;
  . . .
  passToMethod(s);
}

Which is more readable, IMO, the better approach. Your attempts to optimize may result in gains in some platform, but potentially losses others.

But if you really are running into issues with performance, then sure, optimize away. I'd start with explicitly specifying the buffer size of the StringBuilder though, per Jon Skeet.

Answer 10

Faster still:

public class ScratchPad {

    private static String a;

    public static void main( String[] args ) throws Exception {
        long time = System.currentTimeMillis();
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

        for( int i = 0; i < 10000000; i++ ) {
            // Resetting the string is faster than creating a new object.
            // Since this is a critical loop, every instruction counts.
            //
            sb.setLength( 0 );
            sb.append( "someString" );
            sb.append( "someString2" ).append( i );
            sb.append( "someStrin4g" ).append( i );
            sb.append( "someStr5ing" ).append( i );
            sb.append( "someSt7ring" ).append( i );
            setA( sb.toString() );
        }

        System.out.println( System.currentTimeMillis()-time );
    }

    private static void setA( String aString ) {
        a = aString;
    }
}

In the philosophy of writing solid code, the inner workings of the method should be hidden from the objects that use the method. Thus it makes no difference from the system's perspective whether you redeclare the StringBuilder within the loop or outside of the loop. Since declaring it outside of the loop is faster, and it does not make the code more complicated to read, then reuse the object rather than reinstantiate it.

Even if the code was more complicated, and you knew for certain that object instantiation was the bottleneck, comment it.

Note that "someString"+i is the true bottleneck as the + operator is expensive; use append(...) instead.

Answer 11

The reason why doing a 'setLength' or 'delete' improves the performance is mostly the code 'learning' the right size of the buffer, and less to do the memory allocation. Generally, I recommend letting the compiler do the string optimizations. However, if the performance is critical, I'll often pre-calculate the expected size of the buffer. The default StringBuilder size is 16 characters. If you grow beyond that, then it has to resize. Resizing is where the performance is getting lost. Here's another mini-benchmark which illustrates this:

private void clear() throws Exception {
    long time = System.currentTimeMillis();
    int maxLength = 0;
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

    for( int i = 0; i < 10000000; i++ ) {
        // Resetting the string is faster than creating a new object.
        // Since this is a critical loop, every instruction counts.
        //
        sb.setLength( 0 );
        sb.append( "someString" );
        sb.append( "someString2" ).append( i );
        sb.append( "someStrin4g" ).append( i );
        sb.append( "someStr5ing" ).append( i );
        sb.append( "someSt7ring" ).append( i );
        maxLength = Math.max(maxLength, sb.toString().length());
    }

    System.out.println(maxLength);
    System.out.println("Clear buffer: " + (System.currentTimeMillis()-time) );
}

private void preAllocate() throws Exception {
    long time = System.currentTimeMillis();
    int maxLength = 0;

    for( int i = 0; i < 10000000; i++ ) {
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(82);
        sb.append( "someString" );
        sb.append( "someString2" ).append( i );
        sb.append( "someStrin4g" ).append( i );
        sb.append( "someStr5ing" ).append( i );
        sb.append( "someSt7ring" ).append( i );
        maxLength = Math.max(maxLength, sb.toString().length());
    }

    System.out.println(maxLength);
    System.out.println("Pre allocate: " + (System.currentTimeMillis()-time) );
}

public void testBoth() throws Exception {
    for(int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
     clear();
     preAllocate();
    }
}

The results show reusing the object is about 10% faster than creating a buffer of the expected size.