CODEWITHSUNDEEP
performanceobfuscation
Informagic
Informagic

Reputation: 1192

Performance loss through obfuscation?

I’ve read that good obfuscation techniques not merely do things like replacing method names with something obscure, but also, for instance, replace strings in the source code with byte arrays and add methods to convert those back to the original strings.

This might be one of those questions leading to opinion-based answers, but I’m going to ask it anyway: Is there any general notion how much performance loss an application would suffer from in case such an obfuscation method is applied? I’ve got in mind a software that is heavily leaning on a database, i.e., queries exist in the code, for instance, as C# strings or StringBuilder entities.

Upvotes: 3

Views: 1259

Answers (1)

Nathan Arthur
Nathan Arthur

Reputation: 1182

Yes, string obfuscation has a significant performance impact, at the micro-level. With obfuscation, instead of a direct memory lookup you have code that has to execute (every time), and it is usually somewhat complicated, so it is necessarily much worse at the micro-performance level.

However, that cost usually doesn't matter; the time required for the database call (or showing the UI dialog, or sending the error to a log, or network traffic, or ...) is going to be orders of magnitude higher than the cost of converting the string. In most cases, the cost of the conversion is essentially invisible.

As with everything, careful testing is wise, but usually the costs are only "visible" if you are accessing obfuscated strings in a tight loop that is already CPU-performance-sensitive.

Upvotes: 2

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