Bob Balaban writes:
In LotusScript, instead of testing for a null string with:
if s = "" or s <> ""
It's much faster to do it this way:
if len(s) = 0
I have heard this often, and I was curious about the actual difference. So, I decided to test it out. Bottom line: I wouldn't bother.
The clock on a Windows PC only "ticks" every 100th of a second, so to get an accurate timing on something you have to do it a bunch of times. I like to wait until the timer "ticks over" and then start repeatedly doing whatever it is I'm timing, counting how many times I can do it in a pre-selected amount of time. Here's the subroutine I modify to do the test.
Dim startTime As Single, endTime As Single
Dim iters As Long
' do your initialization for the test here
' ...
startTime = Timer
While startTime = Timer
' wait for the next timer tick
Wend
endTime = Timer + limit
Do
iters = iters + 1
' put the code you want to time here.
' ...
Loop While Timer < endTime
TimeControl = (Timer-startTime) / iters ' return time per iteration
End Function
We should get a pretty accurate measure provided limit is at least 4 (seconds) or so. If the task takes a lot longer than we expect and the final iteration goes past the limit, it uses the actual elapsed time to calculate the time per iteration.
Since the mechanics of looping and checking the timer takes a little time, I like to call this unmodified function as a control, and subtract the time it returns from the time for whatever I'm testing. So I might write:
control = TimeControl(5.)
tOpenDoc = TimeOpenDoc(5.)-control
It's best to run the test several times, throw out high/low values and average the rest, to account for differences in how busy your system might be at the time the test is running. Using this technique, I timed 5 things:
| Operation: | Time (sec) |
| Test string with = when string is blank | .00000058 |
| Test string with = when string is not blank | .00000058 |
| Test string with Len(x) = 0 when string is blank | .00000035 |
| Test string with Len(x) = 0 when string is not blank | .00000047 |
| GetDocumentByID in a local database | .00020882 |
Using Len is faster, but the difference is only about two ten-millionths of a second -- if doing five million string comparisons, you'd see a one-second difference in your code's execution time. Note that the constant "" is built-in to the LotusScript engine, so there is no question of allocating memory.
Most of the time in a typical script is spent opening databases and documents, reading and setting document field values, saving documents, navigating views and collections, and other such operations that take hundreds to millions of times as long as a string comparison. Given that, the amount of time you save by using Len is not noticeable, so it's better to maximize readability/maintainability. For me, the equal test is more readable. If you take the developer time you would spend changing every = "" to a test of Len, and apply that to eliminating unneeded database operations instead, you'll get way more bang for your performance-optimization buck.
Andre Guirard | 27 February 2008 02:56:00 AM ET | Home, Plymouth, MN, USA | Comments (3)
