strcat在某种特定条件下的优化

strcat是C语言一个基本的字符串操作函数，它的源代码一般是这样的。

char *strcat(char *dest, const char *src)  
{  
    char *tmp = dest;  
    while (*dest) dest++;  
    while ((*dest++ = *src++) != '/0');  
    return tmp;  
} 

由此可见，strcat调用时，先移动目标字符串的指针到其尾部，再进行复制。这种做法对于下标比较大的数组重复调用时，效率比较低。想象一下，第一次调用strcat时，指针由0数到100，只不过复制了几个字符，第二次调用strcat时，指针又从0数到108，无论调用多少次，指针总是从0数起，就会知道这个时候是多么浪费系统资源了！

我找到一个办法，字符串追加时，事先给出目标字符串结尾所在的位置，追加时，也就不用从头开始计算其长度了，复制的过程中，目标字符串的结尾也随之移动，下一次再追加也就可以使用它了。以下就是优化过的string_append，与strcat相比，增加了一个整形指针以传递目标字符串长度的地址。飞鸽传书：http://www.freeeim.com/，strcat在某种特定条件下的优化。

 

/*
 * optimizer for strcat when appending to a large array again and again
 */
char *string_append(char *dest, int *end, const char *src) {
    if ( *end >= 0 && dest && src ) {
        char *p = dest + *end;
        while ( *p++ = *src++ ) (*end)++;
    }
    return dest;
}

经试验，string_append在大数组重复追加内容的情形下，优势非常明显。其它情形下，使用原来的strcat也就足够了。

 

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <time.h>

#define BUFF_SIZE 4096

/*
 * optimizer for strcat when appending to a large array again and again
 */
char *string_append(char *dest, int *end, const char *src) {
    if ( *end >= 0 && dest && src ) {
        char *p = dest + *end;
        while ( *p++ = *src++ ) (*end)++;
    }
    return dest;
}

int main() {
    int i = 0, j = 0;
    int retry = 100000;
    int field = 100;
    char output1[BUFF_SIZE], output2[BUFF_SIZE];
    time_t time1 = time(NULL);
    for ( i = 0; i < retry; i++ ) {
        memset(output1, 0, BUFF_SIZE);
        int length = 0;
        string_append(output1, &length, "header/n");
        for ( j = 0; j < field; j++ ) {
            string_append(output1, &length, "/tcall detail record ");
            char c[8];
            sprintf(c, "%d", j);
            string_append(output1, &length, c);
            string_append(output1, &length, "/n");
        }
        string_append(output1, &length, "trailer/n");
    }
    time_t time2 = time(NULL);
    printf("It takes %d seconds to show the performance of string_append()/n", time2 - time1);

    time1 = time(NULL);
    for ( i = 0; i < retry; i++ ) {
        memset(output2, 0, BUFF_SIZE);
        strcat(output2, "header/n");
        for ( j = 0; j < field; j++ ) {
            strcat(output2, "/tcall detail record ");
            char c[8];
            sprintf(c, "%d", j);
            strcat(output2, c);
            strcat(output2, "/n");
        }
        strcat(output2, "trailer/n");
    }
    time2 = time(NULL);
    printf("It takes %d seconds to show the performance of strcat()/n", time2 - time1);
    if ( strcmp(output1, output2) )
        printf("They are NOT equal/n");
    else
        printf("They are equal/n");
    return 0;
}
 

-bash-3.2$ ./string_append_demo

It takes 2 seconds to show the performance of string_append()

It takes 11 seconds to show the performance of strcat()

They are equal