CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaarraysstringstringbuilder
Felipe Centeno
Felipe Centeno

Reputation: 3719

String vs Char Array vs String Builder (efficiency performance)

I am writing a spell corrector that gives suggestions to the user. To do this, I am using words one and two edit distance away. There are four techniques:

Some of these require many iterations through the word, and doing things like swapping two letters, or adding a letter in the middle of a string.

I know String are immutable in java, and that insert from string builder might create copies of the string as necessary, so I was wondering if an array of char would make this any faster.

Upvotes: 7

Views: 7573

Answers (1)

Andy Turner
Andy Turner

Reputation: 140309

It is very hard to say - without more context - which of various approaches will be the fastest. (Or even if the difference in speed is relevant; or that speed is the most important metric).

You would need to benchmark the various approaches for your situation.

StringBuilder is just a wrapper around a char[], adding functionality like resizing the array as necessary; and moving elements when you insert/delete etc.

It might be marginally faster to use the char[] directly for some things, but you'd lose (or have to reimplement) a lot of the useful functionality.

Upvotes: 11

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