Better an helper class with only static methods or class instance with same helper methods

Question

I have a question related to performance and how the compiler works in Java.

If I have a class with no state at all like

public class Helper {

  public String helperMethod(String text) {
     ....
     return value; 
  }
}

instead of doing

public class StaticHelper {

  public static String helperMethod(String text) {
     ....
     return value; 
  }
}

And then I do several call of type

new Helper().helperMethod("bla");

will the compiler somehow optimize the object creation or should I expect an overhead (minimal, I suppose) on the garbage collector and allocated memory?

Otherwise I should do StaticHelper.helperMethod("bla") , but this will prevent me to use a fluent interface, that I'd prefer.

Answer 1

There's no difference in these cases except the one moment. Nested class (static inner class) in Java doesn't have a reference to the Outer class, but the Inner class has a reference to the Outer. You can have problems with performance because JVM can't GC the Outer class if you have a reference to the Inner Class in your code.