Re: std::string and std::ostringstream performances

From:
"Jim Langston" <tazmaster@rocketmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Thu, 1 Nov 2007 14:37:40 -0700
Message-ID:
<WErWi.68$Ua.64@newsfe06.lga>
"Erik Wikstr?m" <Erik-wikstrom@telia.com> wrote in message
news:durWi.12684$ZA.8173@newsb.telia.net...

On 2007-11-01 21:53, Jim Langston wrote:

"James Kanze" <james.kanze@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1193911545.733761.171970@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
On Oct 31, 10:55 pm, Erik Wikstr? <Erik-wikst...@telia.com> wrote:

    [...]

I do not know, and I do not think the standard says anything
about it. But a good implementation will probably use a
resizing scheme similar to the one used for vectors, such as
(at least) doubling the capacity every time it resizes.


Doubling is actually not a very good strategy; multiplying by
say 1.5 is considerably better. (As a general rule, the
multiplier should be less that (1+sqrt(5))/2---about 1.6. 1.5
is close enough, and easy to calculate.) In memory tight
situations, of course, the multiplier should be even smaller.

The original STL implementation did use 2, and I suspect that
many implementations still do, even though we now know that it
isn't such a good idea.

=====

I deciced to test my implementation so I wrote this:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>

int main()
{
    std::string Foo;

    std::string::size_type LastCapacity = Foo.capacity();
    std::cout << "Initial Capacity:" << LastCapacity << "\n";
    for ( int i = 0; i < 100; ++i )
    {
        Foo += "x";
        if ( Foo.capacity() != LastCapacity )
        {
            std::cout << "Size:" << Foo.size() << " " << "Capacity:" <<
Foo.capacity() << "\n";
            LastCapacity = Foo.capacity();
        }
    }
}

The output for my system is:

Initial Capacity:15
Size:16 Capacity:31
Size:32 Capacity:47
Size:48 Capacity:70
Size:71 Capacity:105

So as we can see, on my system if I did not initially .reserve() and
added 1
character at a time then I would wind up with 4 extra memory
reallocations.


And for those too lazy to do the math themselves the numbers means that
the capacity is multiplied by 1.5 on each resize.

To James Kanze: I too would be interested in hearing about the source of
the "less than 1.6 multiplication" rule. I have tried to google for it
but I do not even know about where to start.


It was explained to me once. Consider a string with an initial capacity of
100. There are 100 bytes of memory allocated. Then if you double it, there
is a hole in the first 100 bytes, and the next 200 bytes are allocated. Now
you double it again to 400. 100 is not enough so it can't use the hole, so
it allocates 400 bytes,leaving a 300 byte hole. Double again, 800, 300 is
not enough, it allcoates 800, leaving a 700 byte hole. As we can see, it
can never reuse the memory from the previous allocations since they have to
be continguous.

So that's where the 1.6 comes in. That with future allocations eventually
the system will be able to reuse previous memory allocated for the string.

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