Question

I have this code below where I loop through string and compare everything char by char and it’s very slow process I wonder how I can improve this code.

        //delete anti-xss junk ")]}'\n" (5 chars);
        if (trim)
        {
            googlejson = googlejson.Substring(5);
        }

        //pass through result and turn empty elements into nulls
        //echo strlen( $googlejson ) . '<br>';
        bool instring = false;
        bool inescape = false;
        string lastchar = "";
        string output = "";
        for ( int x=0; x< googlejson.Length; x++ ) {

            string ch = googlejson.Substring(x, 1);

            //toss unnecessary whitespace
            if ( !instring && ( Regex.IsMatch(ch, @"/\s/"))) {
                continue;
            }

            //handle strings
            if ( instring ) {
                if (inescape) {
                    output += ch;
                    inescape = false;
                } else if ( ch == "\\" ) {
                    output += ch;
                    inescape = true;
                } else if ( ch == "\"") {
                    output += ch;
                    instring = false;
                } else {
                    output += ch;
                }
                lastchar = ch;
                continue;
            }


            switch ( ch ) {

                case "\"":
                    output += ch;
                    instring = true;
                    break;

                case ",":
                    if ( lastchar == "," || lastchar == "[" || lastchar == "{" ) { 
                        output += "null";
                    }
                    output += ch;
                    break;
                case "]":
                case "}":
                    if ( lastchar == "," ) { 
                        output += "null";
                    }
                    output += ch;
                    break;

                default:
                    output += ch;
                    break;
            }
            lastchar = ch;
        }
        return output;

This is just amazing.

I have changed 2 following lines and gain phenomenal performance increase like 1000% or something

First change this

string ch = googlejson.Substring(x, 1);

to that

string ch = googlejson[x].ToString();

Second I replaced all += ch with String Builder

output.Append(ch);

So those 2 changes had maximum performance impact.

Answer 1

First, you shouldn’t use Substrings, when only dealing with single characters. Use

char ch = googlejson[x];

instead.

You could also consider using a StringBuilder for your output variable. If you’re working with string, you should always have in mind, that strings are immutable in .NET, so for every

output += ch;

there is a new string instance created.

Use

StringBuilder output = new StringBuilder();

and

output.append(ch);

instead.