Java Reference
In-Depth Information
If the StringBuffer is modified, the StringBuffer array is copied
in its entirety and then modified. Now both the String and String-
Buffer have separate 1 KB character arrays. We have just lost the best
part of 1 KB of memory! Repeating the process continues to use excessive
memory, as we generate 10-character strings each of which uses a 1 KB
character buffer.
Use InputStreamReader toReadStrings
This is a pretty obvious statement, but unfortunately it appears to be
necessary to mention because we often see developers casting byte to
char . The problem with casting here is that we are ignoring the encoding
that was used to store characters in the first place. Unicode formats,
especially UTF-8 which is commonly used in Java programs, can have
a variable number of bytes per character hence they cannot be decoded
byte-by-byte. InputStreamReader efficiently performs the conversion
for us so that we don't need to worry about decoding.
Use String.intern() (ornot)
In essence, String.intern() takes a string and returns a JVM-wide
unique reference to a string with the same content. This helps preserve
memory because it allows us to have only one String instance repre-
senting a specific string. For example, all string constants in our classes
are interned.
Although String.intern() is available for use in any Java appli-
cation, we should only use it with great care. There is no mechanism
to un-intern a string, so once you have called String.intern() ,it
remains in memory until JVM shutdown. It has been suggested that if
we use String.intern() , we can use reference comparison instead
of the normal String.equals() for comparing strings. For example,
consider the following code:
// Be careful about using intern - it has hidden costs
string1 = string1.intern();
...
string2 = string2.intern();
...
if(string1 == string2)
{ /* do something */ }
A call to String.intern() includes a call to String.equals()
so using String.intern() to 'speed up equals' is usually not a great
idea.
A good use of String.intern() may be if we have many occur-
rences of a particular string throughout the application runtime. Using
String.intern() , we can preserve memory that would normally be
 
Search WWH ::




Custom Search