JMH - List#addAll faster than ArrayList#new?

Question

I have quite a simple JMH Benchmark, I have read left and right that using the constructor of collections should be faster than using the addAll method.

However, my benchmark tends to prove the contrary.

Any explanation on that?

@State(Scope.Benchmark)
public static class Strings {
    public String string = "String";
    public List<String> strings = Arrays.asList("String123", "String456", "String789");
}

@Benchmark
@Fork(value = 5, warmups = 3)
public List<String> withStreams(Strings input) {
    return Stream.concat(Stream.of(input.string), input.strings.stream())
            .collect(Collectors.toList());
}

@Benchmark
@Fork(value = 5, warmups = 3)
public List<String> withoutStreamsButWithConstructor(Strings input) {
    List<String> result = new ArrayList<>(input.strings);
    result.add(input.string);
    return result;
}

@Benchmark
@Fork(value = 5, warmups = 3)
public List<String> withoutStreams(Strings input) {
    List<String> result = new ArrayList<>();
    result.add(input.string);
    result.addAll(input.strings);
    return result;
}

PS: The example with Streams is just an experiment (in fact the actual things I wanted to be sure of)

Results

# Run complete. Total time: 00:16:31

Benchmark                              Mode  Cnt         Score        Error  Units
App.withStreams                       thrpt  100  12649053,043 ± 222716,712  ops/s
App.withoutStreams                    thrpt  100  50572729,531 ± 324271,706  ops/s
App.withoutStreamsButWithConstructor  thrpt  100  30179733,201 ± 380273,095  ops/s

---

Update

Added the following benchmark to the family

@Benchmark
@Fork(value = 5, warmups = 3)
public List<String> withoutStreamsWithAddAfter(Strings input) {
    List<String> result = new ArrayList<>();
    result.addAll(input.strings);
    result.add(input.string);
    return result;
}

And I now get

# Run complete. Total time: 00:22:00

Benchmark                              Mode  Cnt         Score        Error  Units
App.withStreams                       thrpt  100  13560464,180 ± 201012,539  ops/s
App.withoutStreams                    thrpt  100  47490197,224 ± 864545,886  ops/s
App.withoutStreamsButWithConstructor  thrpt  100  29412182,733 ± 346228,939  ops/s
App.withoutStreamsWithAddAfter        thrpt  100  31030909,677 ±  81494,995  ops/s

So the withoutStreams is the most performant one anyway

---

Update #2

I've tried with the following List<String>

@State(Scope.Benchmark)
public static class Strings {
    public String string = "String";
    public List<String> strings = Arrays.asList("String123", "String456", "String789", "StringAbc", "StringDef", "StringGhi", "StringJkl", "StringMno", "StringPqr", "StringStu");
}

And now the results are indeed better for the constructor @Benchmark

# Run complete. Total time: 00:22:01

Benchmark                              Mode  Cnt         Score        Error  Units
App.withStreams                       thrpt  100   7291967,397 ± 330614,125  ops/s
App.withoutStreams                    thrpt  100  23575768,665 ± 127039,282  ops/s
App.withoutStreamsButWithConstructor  thrpt  100  27046342,511 ± 182227,005  ops/s
App.withoutStreamsWithAddAfter        thrpt  100  17873682,945 ± 170786,259  ops/s

Answer 1

I suspect the reason lies in how ArrayList is implemented.

withoutStreamsButWithConstructor creates an array of size 1, and when you call addAll , a new array of size 4 is created, the first element is copied over and the other elements are then added.

withoutStreams creates an array of size 10 (default capacity) and no resizing is required.

If strings contained 10 elements, one array resizing would be required in both methods and I suspect the results would be closer.

More generally, if performance is important, sizing the list correctly with the constructor that takes an int can make a difference.