Re: email stop words

From:
Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer
Date:
Thu, 21 Mar 2013 14:15:10 -0400
Message-ID:
<kifijo$uaa$1@dont-email.me>
On 3/21/2013 12:33 PM, markspace wrote:

On 3/21/2013 6:24 AM, Eric Sosman wrote:

     Integer count = map.get(word);
     map.put(word, count == null ? 1 : count + 1);


Basically, yes.

... and that you switched to something more like

     Integer count = map.get(word);
     map.put(word, new Integer(count == null
         ? 1 : count.intValue() + 1);


No, I made a Counter with a primitive and a reference to the word:

   Counter counter = map.get( word );
   if( counter == null ) {
     counter = new Counter();
     counter.word = word;
     counter.count = 1;
     map.put( word, counter );
   } else
     counter.count++;

If so, the slowdown is probably due to increased memory pressure
and garbage collection: `new' actually creates a new object every


Yeah, that's what I thought too. Although since there's only as many
Counters as there are Strings (words), I don't get why just making a 2x
change would slow the system as horribly as it did. There should be
only 4 million Strings and therefore also 4 million Counters. I can't
figure out why that would be a problem.


     It might be the "long tail" I mentioned earlier. With the
second scheme you need four million Counter objects, while the
original used (perhaps) a hundred thousand large Integers plus
3.9 million references to the few small Integers in the static pool.

     Back of the envelope: The Map holds four million references
to Map.Entry objects, each of which holds a key reference, a
value reference, and a link. With the Integer original, to this
you add a hundred thousand (same out-of-thin-air figure as before)
Integer instances. Total: 16 million references, 4.1 million objects.

     The change to a "word-aware" Counter adds four million more
references and 3.9 million more objects. Yeah, I can see where
that might have a teeny-tiny impact ...

Also, any thoughts on the best way to observe a GC that is thrashing?
I'm really curious to pin this down to some sort of root cause. I
couldn't rule out a coding error somewhere either.


     Hmmm: I used to know something about tuning GC, but my knowledge
is about a decade out of date -- in an area that's had a lot of R&D
in the meantime. There's some Java 6 stuff at

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/gc-tuning-6-140523.html

.... but I haven't read it and can't assess it.

     My suggestion would be to implement a Counter class that
wraps a mutable integer value. Then you'd use


Thanks, I'll take a look at this when I get a chance. A good suggestion!


     If I've understood you correctly, you've already done this --
and that's when the trouble started. Perhaps the hybrid Integer-
or-Counter approach would help, though.

--
Eric Sosman
esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid

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