This program compares the cost of creating a new StringBuffer and
converting it to a String versus keeping the same StringBuffer,
setting its size to zero and then converting it to String.
The table below gives some figures.
Total Message length
0
1
2
4
8
New Buffer
setLength
New Buffer
setLength
New Buffer
setLength
New Buffer
setLength
New Buffer
setLength
256
33
22
34
22
34
22
34
22
33
23
1024
58
41
59
45
59
48
59
51
60
44
4096
146
132
138
132
144
126
142
132
136
132
16384
617
593
593
609
601
617
601
632
593
632
65536
3218
3281
3093
3125
3125
3156
3125
3281
3062
3562
262144
14750
15125
14000
15500
14000
16125
14000
18000
14000
21375
1048576
87500
80000
60500
82000
57000
93000
57500
118500
57500
168500
Performance comparisons of new buffer
creation versus setLength(0) approach for various message sizes and
secondary loop lengths.
The tests copy a message to a destination string buffer and then
copy a 256 character buffer to another buffer the number of times
as specified by the secondary loop length.
The setLength(0) method is usually faster. However,
after copying a large string it becomes slow even when copying
small strings.
This is due to a peculiarity in the copy method in
StringBuffer class which creates a character array of the same
length as the old buffer even if the vast majority of those
characters are unused.
The tests were performed on Linux using IBM's JDK 1.1.8.
The test script is a crude model of what might happen in
reality. If you remain unconvinced of its results, then please send
your alternative measurement scenario.