CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaperformancetry-catch
Mr. White
Mr. White

Reputation: 109

Does the placement of a try-catch block affect performance?

Does the placement of a try-catch block affect performance?

EXAMPLE 1: try-catch block inside of the while-loop

while (true) {
    try {
        // ... read from a file
    } catch (EOFException e) {
        break;
    }
}

EXAMPLE 2: try-catch block surrounds the while-loop

try {
    while (true) {
        // ... read from a file
    } 
} catch (EOFException e) {
    // :P
}

Logically, these two examples are equivalent, but which should I prefer?

Upvotes: 7

Views: 2800

Answers (5)

user370770
user370770

Reputation:

The placement of your try-catch has no incidence whatsoever on the performance of your application. Even if it did, it would be completely negligible, that's not where you want to direct your energy. Implement based on need first, and then optimize. Don't micro-optimize.

Upvotes: 0

Mr. White
Mr. White

Reputation: 109

The second example (try-catch block surrounding the code) is both faster and clearer.

Upvotes: -1

AaronM
AaronM

Reputation: 1577

Should java try blocks be scoped as tightly as possible?

This gives a much better answer than I could. Short of it is, they only add an entry onto a table that's checked when exceptions are thrown, so unless an exception is thrown they don't affect performance. It'd be best to just put it wherever makes it best to try recover, if you can. If not, wherever's useful or makes sense. Though with break outside the loop, I don't think the second is valid anyway.

Upvotes: 4

hvgotcodes
hvgotcodes

Reputation: 120198

can you break from outside the while? I don't think your presupposition, that the 2 are equivalent are true.

My intuition tells me that the try/catch outside the loop is better. If there is a bytecode impact by writing a try/catch, having less created is better. If there is no impact unless the exception occurs, then it doesn't matter. I don't see any circumstances where having the try/catch inside would be better.

I could be wrong...

Upvotes: -1

user315772
user315772

Reputation:

Whatever overhead try-catch incurs is probably negligible, but what draws my attention more with the first case is that it's misleading: you're catching an exception, only to abort the loop. I'd pick solution 2 just because it's consistent with the intent. And you avoid any overhead that way.

Upvotes: 2

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