StringBuffer
and
String
classes, and the
String
class is used to manipulate character strings that cannot be changed. Simply stated, objects of type
String
are read only and immutable. The
StringBuffer
class is used to represent characters that can be modified.
The significant performance difference between these two classes is that StringBuffer
is faster than String
when performing simple concatenations. In String
manipulation code, character strings are routinely concatenated. Using the String
class, concatenations are typically performed as follows:
String str = new String ("Stanford "); str += "Lost!!";
If you were to use StringBuffer
to perform the same concatenation, you would need code that looks like this:
StringBuffer str = new StringBuffer ("Stanford "); str.append("Lost!!");
Developers usually assume that the first example above is more efficient because they think that the second example, which uses the append
method for concatenation, is more costly than the first example, which uses the +
operator to concatenate twoString
objects.
The +
operator appears innocent, but the code generated produces some surprises. Using a StringBuffer
for concatenation can in fact produce code that is significantly faster than using a String
. To discover why this is the case, we must examine the generated bytecode from our two examples. The bytecode for the example usingString
looks like this:
0 new #7 <Class java.lang.String> 3 dup 4 ldc #2 <String "Stanford "> 6 invokespecial #12 <Method java.lang.String(java.lang.String)> 9 astore_1 10 new #8 <Class java.lang.StringBuffer> 13 dup 14 aload_1 15 invokestatic #23 <Method java.lang.String valueOf(java.lang.Object)> 18 invokespecial #13 <Method java.lang.StringBuffer(java.lang.String)> 21 ldc #1 <String "Lost!!"> 23 invokevirtual #15 <Method java.lang.StringBuffer append(java.lang.String)> 26 invokevirtual #22 <Method java.lang.String toString()> 29 astore_1
The bytecode at locations 0 through 9 is executed for the first line of code, namely:
String str = new String("Stanford ");
Then, the bytecode at location 10 through 29 is executed for the concatenation:
str += "Lost!!";
Things get interesting here. The bytecode generated for the concatenation creates aStringBuffer
object, then invokes its append
method: the temporary StringBuffer
object is created at location 10, and its append
method is called at location 23. Because theString
class is immutable, a StringBuffer
must be used for concatenation.
After the concatenation is performed on the StringBuffer
object, it must be converted back into a String
. This is done with the call to the toString
method at location 26. This method creates a new String
object from the temporary StringBuffer
object. The creation of this temporary StringBuffer
object and its subsequent conversion back into a String
object are very expensive.
In summary, the two lines of code above result in the creation of three objects:
- A
String
object at location 0 - A
StringBuffer
object at location 10 - A
String
object at location 26
Now, let's look at the bytecode generated for the example using StringBuffer
:
0 new #8 <Class java.lang.StringBuffer> 3 dup 4 ldc #2 <String "Stanford "> 6 invokespecial #13 <Method java.lang.StringBuffer(java.lang.String)> 9 astore_1 10 aload_1 11 ldc #1 <String "Lost!!"> 13 invokevirtual #15 <Method java.lang.StringBuffer append(java.lang.String)> 16 pop
The bytecode at locations 0 to 9 is executed for the first line of code:
StringBuffer str = new StringBuffer("Stanford ");
The bytecode at location 10 to 16 is then executed for the concatenation:
str.append("Lost!!");
Notice that, as is the case in the first example, this code invokes the append
method of a StringBuffer
object. Unlike the first example, however, there is no need to create a temporary StringBuffer
and then convert it into a String
object. This code creates only one object, the StringBuffer
, at location 0.
In conclusion, StringBuffer
concatenation is significantly faster than String
concatenation. Obviously, StringBuffer
s should be used in this type of operation when possible. If the functionality of the String
class is desired, consider using aStringBuffer
for concatenation and then performing one conversion to String
.
Reggie Hutcherson is a Sun technology evangelist. He evangelizes Sun's Java 2 Platform technologies around the world concentrating on J2SE and the HotSpot performance engine.