Question

I attempted to create a sort-of file generator which spits out hardcoded messages to a file with slight alterations to some of the strings based on user input. Since I’m utilizaing polymorphism, I have multiple files and interfaces.

I’m finding myself passing a file parameters more times than one and is starting to rethink the way I’ve structured my program. Which brings me to ask, is there a huge performance impact from passing a file as a parameter to multiple methods?

Thanks.

Answer 1

There’s no measurable performance impact from the number of parameters that you pass to a method.

However, repeatedly opening and closing a java.io.File{Input|Output}Stream does have a cost. And you need boilerplate try/finally code to ensure that the file is properly closed after use.

A better solution is to pass an OutputStream to your methods, and open the file once at the top-level method. This will also allow your code to be most easily tested: you can pass a ByteArrayOutputStream rather than a FileOutputStream.

Oh, and wrap your FileOutputStream in a BufferedOutputStream