Question

When running the following piece of code, the execution of the Java String’s native method getBytes() seems to be slower than the custom getBytesFast() implementation. You can use the Arrays.equals(str.getBytes(), getBytesFast(str)) to verify that both byte arrays are equals.

The getBytesFast implementation is a modified version of the implementation included in this programming tips article (1997): http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Programming/Performance/

I’m looking for a well documented answer on why the native implementation is slower than the custom implementation.

package com.test;

public class Performance {

    public static void main(String args[]) {

        final String str = "This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! This is a performance test! 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        long startTime_1 = System.nanoTime();
        str.getBytes();
        System.out.println(System.nanoTime() - startTime_1);

        long startTime_2 = System.nanoTime();
        getBytesFast(str);
        System.out.println(System.nanoTime() - startTime_2);
    }

    private static byte[] getBytesFast(String str) {
        final char buffer[] = new char[str.length()];
        final int length = str.length();
        str.getChars(0, length, buffer, 0);
        final byte b[] = new byte[length];
        for (int j = 0; j < length; j++)
            b[j] = (byte) buffer[j];
        return b;
    }
}

EDITED:

Caliper benchmark results

Thanks

Answer 1

String.getBytes takes into account the default charset of the system. Your implementation assumes ISO-8859-1.

String.getBytes eventually ends up calling this method. ce is a CharsetEncoder.

byte[] encode(char[] ca, int off, int len) {
        int en = scale(len, ce.maxBytesPerChar());
        byte[] ba = new byte[en];
        if (len == 0)
            return ba;
        if (ce instanceof ArrayEncoder) {
            int blen = ((ArrayEncoder)ce).encode(ca, off, len, ba);
            return safeTrim(ba, blen, cs, isTrusted);
        } else {
            ce.reset();
            ByteBuffer bb = ByteBuffer.wrap(ba);
            CharBuffer cb = CharBuffer.wrap(ca, off, len);
            try {
                CoderResult cr = ce.encode(cb, bb, true);
                if (!cr.isUnderflow())
                    cr.throwException();
                cr = ce.flush(bb);
                if (!cr.isUnderflow())
                    cr.throwException();
            } catch (CharacterCodingException x) {
                // Substitution is always enabled,
                // so this shouldn't happen
                throw new Error(x);
            }
            return safeTrim(ba, bb.position(), cs, isTrusted);
        }
    }
}

private static int scale(int len, float expansionFactor) {
    // We need to perform double, not float, arithmetic; otherwise
    // we lose low order bits when len is larger than 2**24.
    return (int)(len * (double)expansionFactor);
}

private static char[] safeTrim(char[] ca, int len,
                               Charset cs, boolean isTrusted) {
    if (len == ca.length && (isTrusted || System.getSecurityManager() == null))
        return ca;
    else
        return Arrays.copyOf(ca, len);
}

There is a much larger degree of complexity involved with using a CharsetEncoder, which could account for the slower execution times you are seeing.