Which is more quickly evaluated? I'm using java syntax, but any programming language would apply to the question.
while (1==1) {
}
while (true) {
}
I tried testing this with a large loop. The results varied far too much to give me a solid answer.
What you are trying to do is a "micro optimisation". It's not worth it. Any decent compiler will produce identical code, since 1 == 1 is obviously the same as true. Even if it was different code, that little bit of change will not make any measurable difference.
While #gnasher729's answer is totally right for Java, here is how to find out by yourself.
See the following class file:
import java.util.Date;
public class SoOne {
public static void main(String... args) {
long counter = 1;
long start = new Date().getTime();
while ( 1 == 1 ) { // other class has while ( true )
counter += 1;
if ( counter % 1000000 == 0 ) {
System.out.println("after: "
+ ( new Date().getTime() - start )
+ ": " + counter
+ " per second: "
+ ( counter
/ ( new Date().getTime() - start )));
}
}
}
}
If you save this to f.ex. SoOne.java, change the line to while (true), save it as SoTrue.java, and compile both via javac SoOne.java SoTrue.java, you get the class files. These can be disassembled via
javap -c SoOne.class >so.javap
javap -c SoTrue.class >st.javap
The differences are
diff so.javap st.javap
1,3c1,3
< Compiled from "SoOne.java"
< public class SoOne {
< public SoOne();
---
> Compiled from "SoTrue.java"
> public class SoTrue {
> public SoTrue();
So the compiler really removes both checks. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_optimization#When_to_optimize about when to optimize.
Related
I use the MediaList to play some movies and streams in a list.
String[] paths = { "\tmp\movie1.mp4", "\tmp\movie2.mp4", "http://stream.mp4" };
String[] options = { "--run-time=2", "--run-time=5", "--run-time=10" };
The initialization of the media list is as follows
mediaListPlayer = factory.newMediaListPlayer();
mediaListPlayer.setMediaPlayer(mediaPlayer);
MediaList mediaList = factory.newMediaList();
for ( int i = 0; i < paths.length; i++ )
{
if ( options[i].length() > 0 )
{
mediaList.addMedia(paths[i], options[i]);
}
else
{
mediaList.addMedia(paths[i]);
}
}
mediaListPlayer.setMediaList(mediaList);
mediaListPlayer.setMode(MediaListPlayerMode.LOOP);
mediaListPlayer.play();
The media list player ignores the optons. What is wrong with the code? Any help is welcome, thanks
The syntax for the options is not obvious, this works:
:start-time=30
:run-time=5
The above options would start at 30 seconds, (you can use e.g. 30.5 for fractions of a second), and run for 5 seconds.
So replace your "--run-time=5" with ":run-time=5".
The following code, which maps simple value holders to booleans, runs over 20x faster in Java than Swift 2 - XCode 7 beta3, "Fastest, Aggressive Optimizations [-Ofast]", and "Fast, Whole Module Optimizations" turned on. I can get over 280M lookups/sec in Java but only about 10M in Swift.
When I look at it in Instruments I see that most of the time is going into a pair of retain/release calls associated with the map lookup. Any suggestions on why this is happening or a workaround would be appreciated.
The structure of the code is a simplified version of my real code, which has a more complex key class and also stores other types (though Boolean is an actual case for me). Also, note that I am using a single mutable key instance for the retrieval to avoid allocating objects inside the loop and according to my tests this is faster in Swift than an immutable key.
EDIT: I have also tried switching to NSMutableDictionary but when used with Swift objects as keys it seems to be terribly slow.
EDIT2: I have tried implementing the test in objc (which wouldn't have the Optional unwrapping overhead) and it is faster but still over an order of magnitude slower than Java... I'm going to pose that example as another question to see if anyone has ideas.
EDIT3 - Answer. I have posted my conclusions and my workaround in an answer below.
public final class MyKey : Hashable {
var xi : Int = 0
init( _ xi : Int ) { set( xi ) }
final func set( xi : Int) { self.xi = xi }
public final var hashValue: Int { return xi }
}
public func == (lhs: MyKey, rhs: MyKey) -> Bool {
if ( lhs === rhs ) { return true }
return lhs.xi==rhs.xi
}
...
var map = Dictionary<MyKey,Bool>()
let range = 2500
for x in 0...range { map[ MyKey(x) ] = true }
let runs = 10
for _ in 0...runs
{
let time = Time()
let reps = 10000
let key = MyKey(0)
for _ in 0...reps {
for x in 0...range {
key.set(x)
if ( map[ key ] == nil ) { XCTAssertTrue(false) }
}
}
print("rate=\(time.rate( reps*range )) lookups/s")
}
and here is the corresponding Java code:
public class MyKey {
public int xi;
public MyKey( int xi ) { set( xi ); }
public void set( int xi) { this.xi = xi; }
#Override public int hashCode() { return xi; }
#Override
public boolean equals( Object o ) {
if ( o == this ) { return true; }
MyKey mk = (MyKey)o;
return mk.xi == this.xi;
}
}
...
Map<MyKey,Boolean> map = new HashMap<>();
int range = 2500;
for(int x=0; x<range; x++) { map.put( new MyKey(x), true ); }
int runs = 10;
for(int run=0; run<runs; run++)
{
Time time = new Time();
int reps = 10000;
MyKey buffer = new MyKey( 0 );
for (int it = 0; it < reps; it++) {
for (int x = 0; x < range; x++) {
buffer.set( x );
if ( map.get( buffer ) == null ) { Assert.assertTrue( false ); }
}
}
float rate = reps*range/time.s();
System.out.println( "rate = " + rate );
}
After much experimentation I have come to some conclusions and found a workaround (albeit somewhat extreme).
First let me say that I recognize that this kind of very fine grained data structure access within a tight loop is not representative of general performance, but it does affect my application and I'm imagining others like games and heavily numeric applications. Also let me say that I know that Swift is a moving target and I'm sure it will improve - perhaps my workaround (hacks) below will not be necessary by the time you read this. But if you are trying to do something like this today and you are looking at Instruments and seeing the majority of your application time spent in retain/release and you don't want to rewrite your entire app in objc please read on.
What I have found is that almost anything that one does in Swift that touches an object reference incurs an ARC retain/release penalty. Additionally Optional values - even optional primitives - also incur this cost. This pretty much rules out using Dictionary or NSDictionary.
Here are some things that are fast that you can include in a workaround:
a) Arrays of primitive types.
b) Arrays of final objects as long as long as the array is on the stack and not on the heap. e.g. Declare an array within the method body (but outside of your loop of course) and iteratively copy the values to it. Do not Array(array) copy it.
Putting this together you can construct a data structure based on arrays that stores e.g. Ints and then store array indexes to your objects in that data structure. Within your loop you can look up the objects by their index in the fast local array. Before you ask "couldn't the data structure store the array for me" - no, because that would incur two of the penalties I mentioned above :(
All things considered this workaround is not too bad - If you can enumerate the entities that you want to store in the Dictionary / data structure you should be able to host them in an array as described. Using the technique above I was able to exceed the Java performance by a factor of 2x in Swift in my case.
If anyone is still reading and interested at this point I will consider updating my example code and posting.
EDIT: I'd add an option: c) It is also possible to use UnsafeMutablePointer<> or Unmanaged<> in Swift to create a reference that will not be retained when passed around. I was not aware of this when I started and I would hesitate to recommend it in general because it's a hack, but I've used it in a few cases to wrap a heavily used array that was incurring a retain/release every time it was referenced.
I can't seem to find a great way to express the following in Xtend without resorting to a while loop:
for(int i = 0; i < 3; i++){
println("row ");
}
println("your boat");
So, I guess my question has two parts:
Is there a better way to do the above? I didn't see anything promising in their documenation
A large portion of the features the language has are just Xtend library extensions (and they're great!). Is there range() functionality à la Python that I don't know about?
I ended up rolling my own and got something like the following:
class LanguageUtil {
def static Iterable<Integer> range(int stop) {
range(0, stop)
}
def static Iterable<Integer> range(int start, int stop) {
new RangeIterable(start, stop, 1)
}
def static Iterable<Integer> range(int start, int stop, int step) {
new RangeIterable(start, stop, step)
}
}
// implements Iterator and Iterable which is bad form.
class RangeIterable implements Iterator<Integer>, Iterable<Integer> {
val int start
val int stop
val int step
var int current
new(int start, int stop, int step) {
this.start = start;
this.stop = stop;
this.step = step
this.current = start
}
override hasNext() {
current < stop
}
override next() {
val ret = current
current = current + step
ret
}
override remove() {
throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Auto-generated function stub")
}
/**
* This is bad form. We could return a
* new RangeIterable here, but that seems worse.
*/
override iterator() {
this
}
}
The exact replacement for
for(int i = 0; i < 3; i++){
println("row ");
}
is
for (i : 0 ..< 3) {
println("row ")
}
Notice the exclusive range operator: ..<
Also you can doing it more idiomatically with
(1..3).forEach[println("row")]
Very new to Xtend but man it makes programming on the jvm awesome.
To me a range-based forEach implies the range is somehow meaningful. For looping a specific number of times with no iteration variable, I find Ruby's times loop expresses the intent more clearly:
3.times [|println("row")]
Sadly it's not a part of IntegerExtensions, but the implementation is trivial:
def static times(int iterations, Runnable runnable) {
if (iterations < 0) throw new IllegalArgumentException(
'''Can't iterate negative («iterations») times.''')
for (i: 0 ..< iterations) runnable.run()
}
Heh, I found the answer a little while later:
for(i: 1..3) {
println("row ")
}
Since Xtend 2.6, we also support the "traditional" for-loop, just like in Java.
There is actually a version of forEach() that accepts a lambda with two parameters.
It is useful if you need to access the iteration index within the loop.
(10..12).forEach[ x, i | println('''element=«x» index=«i»''')]
prints:
element=10 index=0
element=11 index=1
element=12 index=2
Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
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My group is having some discussion and strong feelings about for loop construction.
I have favored loops like:
size_t x;
for (x = 0; x < LIMIT; ++x) {
if (something) {
break;
}
...
}
// If we found what we're looking for, process it.
if (x < LIMIT) {
...
}
But others seem to prefer a Boolean flag like:
size_t x;
bool found = false;
for (x = 0; x < LIMIT && !found; ++x) {
if (something) {
found = true;
}
else {
...
}
}
// If we found what we're looking for, process it.
if (found) {
...
}
(And, where the language allows, using "for (int x = 0; ...".)
The first style has one less variable to keep track of and a simpler loop header. Albeit at the cost of "overloading" the loop control variable and (some would complain), the use of break.
The second style has clearly defined roles for the variables but a more complex loop condition and loop body (either an else, or a continue after found is set, or a "if (!found)" in the balance of the loop).
I think that the first style wins on code complexity. I'm looking for opinions from a broader audience. Pointers to actual research on which is easier to read and maintain would be even better. "It doesn't matter, take it out of your standard" is a fine answer, too.
OTOH, this may be the wrong question. I'm beginning to think that the right rule is "if you have to break out of a for, it's really a while."
bool found = false;
x = 0;
while (!found && x < LIMIT) {
if (something) {
found = true;
...handle the thing...
}
else {
...
}
++x;
}
Does what the first two examples do but in fewer lines. It does divide the initialization, test, and increment of x across three lines, though.
I'd actually dare to suggest consideration of GOTO to break out of loops in such cases:
for (size_t x = 0; x < LIMIT && !found; ++x) {
if (something)
goto found;
else {
...
}
}
// not found
...
return;
found:
...
return;
I consider this form to be both succint and readable. It may do some good in many simple cases (say, when there is no common processing in this function, in both found/unfound cases).
And about the general frowning goto receives, I find it to be a common misinterpretation of Dijkstra's original claims: his arguments favoured structured loop clauses, as for or while, over a primitive loop-via-goto, that still had a lot of presence circa 1968. Even the almighty Knuth eventualy says -
The new morality that I propose may
perhaps be stated thus: "Certain go to
statements which arise in connection with
well-understood transformations are acceptable, provided that the program documentation explains what the transformation was."
Others here occasionaly think the same.
While I disagree that an extra else really makes the 2nd more complicated, I think it's primarily a matter of aesthetics and keeping to your standard.
Personally, I have a probably irrational dislike of breaks and continues, so I'm MUCH more likely to use the found variable.
Also, note that you CAN add the found variable to the 1st implementation and do
if(something)
{
found = true;
break;
}
if you want to avoid the variable overloading problem at the expense of the extra variable, but still want the simple loop terminator...
The former example duplicates the x < LIMIT condition, whereas the latter doesn't.
With the former, if you want to change that condition, you have to remember to do it in two places.
I would prefer a different one altogether:
for (int x = 0; x < LIMIT; ++x) {
if (something) {
// If we found what we're looking for, process it.
...
break;
}
...
}
It seems you have not any trouble you mention about one or the other... ;-)
no duplication of condition, or readability problem
no additional variable
I don't have any references to hand (-1! -1!), but I seem to recall that having multiple exit points (from a function, from a loop) has been shown to cause issues with maintainability (I used to know someone who wrote code for the UK military and it was Verboten to do so). But more importantly, as RichieHindle points out, having a duplicate condition is a Bad Thing, it cries out for introducing bugs by changing one and not the other.
If you weren't using the condition later, I wouldn't be bothered either way. Since you are, the second is the way to go.
This sort of argument has been fought out here before (probably many times) such as in this question.
There are those that will argue that purity of code is all-important and they'll complain bitterly that your first option doesn't have identical post-conditions for all cases.
What I would answer is "Twaddle!". I'm a pragmatist, not a purist. I'm as against too much spaghetti code as much as the next engineer but some of the hideous terminating conditions I've seen in for loops are far worse than using a couple of breaks within your loop.
I will always go for readability of code over "purity" simply because I have to maintain it.
This looks like a place for a while loop. For loops are Syntactic Sugar on top of a While loop anyway. The general rule is that if you have to break out of a For loop, then use a While loop instead.
package com.company;
import java.io.*;
import java.util.Scanner;
public class Main {
// "line.separator" is a system property that is a platform independent and it is one way
// of getting a newline from your environment.
private static String NEWLINE = System.getProperty("line.separator");
public static void main(String[] args) {
// write your code here
boolean itsdone = false;
String userInputFileName;
String FirstName = null;
String LastName = null;
String user_junk;
String userOutputFileName;
String outString;
int Age = -1;
int rint = 0;
int myMAX = 100;
int MyArr2[] = new int[myMAX];
int itemCount = 0;
double average = 0;
double total = 0;
boolean ageDone = false;
Scanner inScan = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.println("Enter First Name");
FirstName = inScan.next();
System.out.println("Enter Last Name");
LastName = inScan.next();
ageDone = false;
while (!ageDone) {
System.out.println("Enter Your Age");
if (inScan.hasNextInt()) {
Age = inScan.nextInt();
System.out.println(FirstName + " " + LastName + " " + "is " + Age + " Years old");
ageDone = true;
} else {
System.out.println("Your Age Needs to Have an Integer Value... Enter an Integer Value");
user_junk = inScan.next();
ageDone = false;
}
}
try {
File outputFile = new File("firstOutFile.txt");
if (outputFile.createNewFile()){
System.out.println("firstOutFile.txt was created"); // if file was created
}
else {
System.out.println("firstOutFile.txt existed and is being overwritten."); // if file had already existed
}
// --------------------------------
// If the file creation of access permissions to write into it
// are incorrect the program throws an exception
//
if ((outputFile.isFile()|| outputFile.canWrite())){
BufferedWriter fileOut = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(outputFile));
fileOut.write("==================================================================");
fileOut.write(NEWLINE + NEWLINE +" You Information is..." + NEWLINE + NEWLINE);
fileOut.write(NEWLINE + FirstName + " " + LastName + " " + Age + NEWLINE);
fileOut.write("==================================================================");
fileOut.close();
}
else {
throw new IOException();
}
} // end of try
catch (IOException e) { // in case for some reason the output file could not be created
System.err.format("IOException: %s%n", e);
e.printStackTrace();
}
} // end main method
}
The most egregiously redundant code construct I often see involves using the code sequence
if (condition)
return true;
else
return false;
instead of simply writing
return (condition);
I've seen this beginner error in all sorts of languages: from Pascal and C to PHP and Java. What other such constructs would you flag in a code review?
if (foo == true)
{
do stuff
}
I keep telling the developer that does that that it should be
if ((foo == true) == true)
{
do stuff
}
but he hasn't gotten the hint yet.
if (condition == true)
{
...
}
instead of
if (condition)
{
...
}
Edit:
or even worse and turning around the conditional test:
if (condition == false)
{
...
}
which is easily read as
if (condition) then ...
Using comments instead of source control:
-Commenting out or renaming functions instead of deleting them and trusting that source control can get them back for you if needed.
-Adding comments like "RWF Change" instead of just making the change and letting source control assign the blame.
Somewhere I’ve spotted this thing, which I find to be the pinnacle of boolean redundancy:
return (test == 1)? ((test == 0) ? 0 : 1) : ((test == 0) ? 0 : 1);
:-)
Redundant code is not in itself an error. But if you're really trying to save every character
return (condition);
is redundant too. You can write:
return condition;
Declaring separately from assignment in languages other than C:
int foo;
foo = GetFoo();
Returning uselessly at the end:
// stuff
return;
}
I once had a guy who repeatedly did this:
bool a;
bool b;
...
if (a == true)
b = true;
else
b = false;
void myfunction() {
if(condition) {
// Do some stuff
if(othercond) {
// Do more stuff
}
}
}
instead of
void myfunction() {
if(!condition)
return;
// Do some stuff
if(!othercond)
return;
// Do more stuff
}
Using .tostring on a string
Putting an exit statement as first statement in a function to disable the execution of that function, instead of one of the following options:
Completely removing the function
Commenting the function body
Keeping the function but deleting all the code
Using the exit as first statement makes it very hard to spot, you can easily read over it.
Fear of null (this also can lead to serious problems):
if (name != null)
person.Name = name;
Redundant if's (not using else):
if (!IsPostback)
{
// do something
}
if (IsPostback)
{
// do something else
}
Redundant checks (Split never returns null):
string[] words = sentence.Split(' ');
if (words != null)
More on checks (the second check is redundant if you are going to loop)
if (myArray != null && myArray.Length > 0)
foreach (string s in myArray)
And my favorite for ASP.NET: Scattered DataBinds all over the code in order to make the page render.
Copy paste redundancy:
if (x > 0)
{
// a lot of code to calculate z
y = x + z;
}
else
{
// a lot of code to calculate z
y = x - z;
}
instead of
if (x > 0)
y = x + CalcZ(x);
else
y = x - CalcZ(x);
or even better (or more obfuscated)
y = x + (x > 0 ? 1 : -1) * CalcZ(x)
Allocating elements on the heap instead of the stack.
{
char buff = malloc(1024);
/* ... */
free(buff);
}
instead of
{
char buff[1024];
/* ... */
}
or
{
struct foo *x = (struct foo *)malloc(sizeof(struct foo));
x->a = ...;
bar(x);
free(x);
}
instead of
{
struct foo x;
x.a = ...;
bar(&x);
}
The most common redundant code construct I see is code that is never called from anywhere in the program.
The other is design patterns used where there is no point in using them. For example, writing "new BobFactory().createBob()" everywhere, instead of just writing "new Bob()".
Deleting unused and unnecessary code can massively improve the quality of the system and the team's ability to maintain it. The benefits are often startling to teams who have never considered deleting unnecessary code from their system. I once performed a code review by sitting with a team and deleting over half the code in their project without changing the functionality of their system. I thought they'd be offended but they frequently asked me back for design advice and feedback after that.
I often run into the following:
function foo() {
if ( something ) {
return;
} else {
do_something();
}
}
But it doesn't help telling them that the else is useless here. It has to be either
function foo() {
if ( something ) {
return;
}
do_something();
}
or - depending on the length of checks that are done before do_something():
function foo() {
if ( !something ) {
do_something();
}
}
From nightmarish code reviews.....
char s[100];
followed by
memset(s,0,100);
followed by
s[strlen(s)] = 0;
with lots of nasty
if (strcmp(s, "1") == 0)
littered about the code.
Using an array when you want set behavior. You need to check everything to make sure its not in the array before you insert it, which makes your code longer and slower.
Redundant .ToString() invocations:
const int foo = 5;
Console.WriteLine("Number of Items: " + foo.ToString());
Unnecessary string formatting:
const int foo = 5;
Console.WriteLine("Number of Items: {0}", foo);