StringBuilder vs String concatenation in toString(

Question

Given the 2 toString() implementations below, which one is preferred:

public String toString(){
    return "{a:"+ a + ", b:" + b + ", c: " + c +"}";
}

or

public String toString(){
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(100);
    return sb.append("{a:").append(a)
          .append(", b:").append(b)
          .append(", c:").append(c)
          .append("}")
          .toString();
}

?

More importantly, given we have only 3 properties it might not make a difference, but at what point would you switch from + concat to StringBuilder?

Answer 1

I compared four different approach to compare the performance. I exactly don't know what happens to gc, but the important thing for me is time. Compiler is important factor here.I used jdk1.8.0_45 under window8.1 platform.

concatWithPlusOperator = 8
concatWithBuilder = 130
concatWithConcat = 127
concatStringFormat = 3737
concatWithBuilder2 = 46

public class StringConcatenationBenchmark {

private static final int MAX_LOOP_COUNT = 1000000;

public static void main(String[] args) {

    int loopCount = 0;
    long t1 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    while (loopCount < MAX_LOOP_COUNT) {
        concatWithPlusOperator();
        loopCount++;
    }
    long t2 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    System.out.println("concatWithPlusOperator = " + (t2 - t1));

    long t3 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    loopCount = 0;
    while (loopCount < MAX_LOOP_COUNT) {
        concatWithBuilder();
        loopCount++;
    }
    long t4 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    System.out.println("concatWithBuilder = " + (t4 - t3));

    long t5 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    loopCount = 0;
    while (loopCount < MAX_LOOP_COUNT) {
        concatWithConcat();
        loopCount++;
    }
    long t6 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    System.out.println("concatWithConcat = " + (t6 - t5));

    long t7 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    loopCount = 0;
    while (loopCount < MAX_LOOP_COUNT) {
        concatStringFormat();
        loopCount++;
    }
    long t8 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    System.out.println("concatStringFormat = " + (t8 - t7));

    long t9 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    loopCount = 0;
    while (loopCount < MAX_LOOP_COUNT) {
        concatWithBuilder2();
        loopCount++;
    }
    long t10 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    System.out.println("concatWithBuilder2 = " + (t10 - t9));
}

private static void concatStringFormat() {
    String s = String.format("%s %s %s %s ", "String", "String", "String", "String");
}

private static void concatWithConcat() {
    String s = "String".concat("String").concat("String").concat("String");
}

private static void concatWithBuilder() {
    StringBuilder builder=new StringBuilder("String");
    builder.append("String").append("String").append("String");
    String s = builder.toString();
}

private static void concatWithBuilder2() {
    String s = new StringBuilder("String").append("String").append("String").append("String").toString();
}

private static void concatWithPlusOperator() {
    String s = "String" + "String" + "String" + "String";
}
}

Answer 2

In most cases, you won't see an actual difference between the two approaches, but it's easy to construct a worst case scenario like this one:

public class Main
{
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        long now = System.currentTimeMillis();
        slow();
        System.out.println("slow elapsed " + (System.currentTimeMillis() - now) + " ms");

        now = System.currentTimeMillis();
        fast();
        System.out.println("fast elapsed " + (System.currentTimeMillis() - now) + " ms");
    }

    private static void fast()
    {
        StringBuilder s = new StringBuilder();
        for(int i=0;i<100000;i++)
            s.append("*");      
    }

    private static void slow()
    {
        String s = "";
        for(int i=0;i<100000;i++)
            s+="*";
    }
}

The output is:

slow elapsed 11741 ms
fast elapsed 7 ms

The problem is that to += append to a string reconstructs a new string, so it costs something linear to the length of your strings (sum of both).

So - to your question:

The second approach would be faster, but it's less readable and harder to maintain. As I said, in your specific case you would probably not see the difference.

Answer 3

In Java 9 the version 1 should be faster because it is converted to invokedynamic call. More details can be found in JEP-280:

The idea is to replace the entire StringBuilder append dance with a simple invokedynamic call to java.lang.invoke.StringConcatFactory, that will accept the values in the need of concatenation.

Answer 4

For simple strings like that I prefer to use

"string".concat("string").concat("string");

In order, I would say the preferred method of constructing a string is using StringBuilder, String#concat(), then the overloaded + operator. StringBuilder is a significant performance increase when working large strings just like using the + operator is a large decrease in performance (exponentially large decrease as the String size increases). The one problem with using .concat() is that it can throw NullPointerExceptions.

Answer 5

Apache Commons-Lang has a ToStringBuilder class which is super easy to use. It does a nice job of both handling the append-logic as well as formatting of how you want your toString to look.

public void toString() {
     ToStringBuilder tsb =  new ToStringBuilder(this);
     tsb.append("a", a);
     tsb.append("b", b)
     return tsb.toString();
}

Will return output that looks like com.blah.YourClass@abc1321f[a=whatever, b=foo].

Or in a more condensed form using chaining:

public void toString() {
     return new ToStringBuilder(this).append("a", a).append("b", b").toString();
}

Or if you want to use reflection to include every field of the class:

public String toString() {
    return ToStringBuilder.reflectionToString(this);
}

You can also customize the style of the ToString if you want.

Answer 6

I also had clash with my boss on the fact whether to use append or +.As they are using Append(I still cant figure out as they say every time a new object is created). So I thought to do some R&D.Although I love Michael Borgwardt explaination but just wanted to show an explanation if somebody will really need to know in future.

/**
 *
 * @author Perilbrain
 */
public class Appc {
    public Appc() {
        String x = "no name";
        x += "I have Added a name" + "We May need few more names" + Appc.this;
        x.concat(x);
        // x+=x.toString(); --It creates new StringBuilder object before concatenation so avoid if possible
        //System.out.println(x);
    }

    public void Sb() {
        StringBuilder sbb = new StringBuilder("no name");
        sbb.append("I have Added a name");
        sbb.append("We May need few more names");
        sbb.append(Appc.this);
        sbb.append(sbb.toString());
        // System.out.println(sbb.toString());
    }
}

and disassembly of above class comes out as

 .method public <init>()V //public Appc()
  .limit stack 2
  .limit locals 2
met001_begin:                                  ; DATA XREF: met001_slot000i
  .line 12
    aload_0 ; met001_slot000
    invokespecial java/lang/Object.<init>()V
  .line 13
    ldc "no name"
    astore_1 ; met001_slot001
  .line 14

met001_7:                                      ; DATA XREF: met001_slot001i
    new java/lang/StringBuilder //1st object of SB
    dup
    invokespecial java/lang/StringBuilder.<init>()V
    aload_1 ; met001_slot001
    invokevirtual java/lang/StringBuilder.append(Ljava/lang/String;)Ljava/lan\
g/StringBuilder;
    ldc "I have Added a nameWe May need few more names"
    invokevirtual java/lang/StringBuilder.append(Ljava/lang/String;)Ljava/lan\
g/StringBuilder;
    aload_0 ; met001_slot000
    invokevirtual java/lang/StringBuilder.append(Ljava/lang/Object;)Ljava/lan\
g/StringBuilder;
    invokevirtual java/lang/StringBuilder.toString()Ljava/lang/String;
    astore_1 ; met001_slot001
  .line 15
    aload_1 ; met001_slot001
    aload_1 ; met001_slot001
    invokevirtual java/lang/String.concat(Ljava/lang/String;)Ljava/lang/Strin\
g;
    pop
  .line 18
    return //no more SB created
met001_end:                                    ; DATA XREF: met001_slot000i ...

; ===========================================================================

;met001_slot000                                ; DATA XREF: <init>r ...
    .var 0 is this LAppc; from met001_begin to met001_end
;met001_slot001                                ; DATA XREF: <init>+6w ...
    .var 1 is x Ljava/lang/String; from met001_7 to met001_end
  .end method
;44-1=44
; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------


; Segment type: Pure code
  .method public Sb()V //public void Sb
  .limit stack 3
  .limit locals 2
met002_begin:                                  ; DATA XREF: met002_slot000i
  .line 21
    new java/lang/StringBuilder
    dup
    ldc "no name"
    invokespecial java/lang/StringBuilder.<init>(Ljava/lang/String;)V
    astore_1 ; met002_slot001
  .line 22

met002_10:                                     ; DATA XREF: met002_slot001i
    aload_1 ; met002_slot001
    ldc "I have Added a name"
    invokevirtual java/lang/StringBuilder.append(Ljava/lang/String;)Ljava/lan\
g/StringBuilder;
    pop
  .line 23
    aload_1 ; met002_slot001
    ldc "We May need few more names"
    invokevirtual java/lang/StringBuilder.append(Ljava/lang/String;)Ljava/lan\
g/StringBuilder;
    pop
  .line 24
    aload_1 ; met002_slot001
    aload_0 ; met002_slot000
    invokevirtual java/lang/StringBuilder.append(Ljava/lang/Object;)Ljava/lan\
g/StringBuilder;
    pop
  .line 25
    aload_1 ; met002_slot001
    aload_1 ; met002_slot001
    invokevirtual java/lang/StringBuilder.toString()Ljava/lang/String;
    invokevirtual java/lang/StringBuilder.append(Ljava/lang/String;)Ljava/lan\
g/StringBuilder;
    pop
  .line 28
    return
met002_end:                                    ; DATA XREF: met002_slot000i ...


;met002_slot000                                ; DATA XREF: Sb+25r
    .var 0 is this LAppc; from met002_begin to met002_end
;met002_slot001                                ; DATA XREF: Sb+9w ...
    .var 1 is sbb Ljava/lang/StringBuilder; from met002_10 to met002_end
  .end method
;96-49=48
; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

From the above two codes you can see Michael is right.In each case only one SB object is created.