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Davide Bellone
Davide Bellone

Posted on • Originally published at code4it.dev on

Top 6 Performance Tips when dealing with strings in C# 12 and .NET 8

#csharp #performance

Sometimes, just a minor change makes a huge difference. Maybe you won't notice it when performing the same operation a few times. Still, the improvement is significant when repeating the operation thousands of times.

In this article, we will learn five simple tricks to improve the performance of your application when dealing with strings.

Note: this article is part of C# Advent Calendar 2023, organized by Matthew D. Groves: it's maybe the only Christmas tradition I like (yes, I'm kind of a Grinch 😂).

Benchmark structure, with dependencies

Before jumping to the benchmarks, I want to spend a few words on the tools I used for this article.

The project is a .NET 8 class library running on a laptop with an i5 processor.

Running benchmarks with BenchmarkDotNet

I'm using BenchmarkDotNet to create benchmarks for my code. BenchmarkDotNet is a library that runs your methods several times, captures some metrics, and generates a report of the executions. If you follow my blog, you might know I've used it several times - for example, in my old article "Enum.HasFlag performance with BenchmarkDotNet".

All the benchmarks I created follow the same structure:

[MemoryDiagnoser]
public class BenchmarkName()
{
    [Params(1, 5, 10)] // clearly, I won't use these values
    public int Size;

    public string[] AllStrings { get; set; }

    [IterationSetup]
    public void Setup()
    {
        AllStrings = StringArrayGenerator.Generate(Size, "hello!", "HELLO!");
    }

    [Benchmark(Baseline=true)]
    public void FirstMethod()
    {
        //omitted
    }

    [Benchmark]
    public void SecondMethod()
    {
        //omitted
    }
}
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In short:

  • the class is marked with the [MemoryDiagnoser] attribute: the benchmark will retrieve info for both time and memory usage;
  • there is a property named Size with the attribute [Params]: this attribute lists the possible values for the Size property;
  • there is a method marked as [IterationSetup]: this method runs before every single execution, takes the value from the Size property, and initializes the AllStrings array;
  • the methods that are parts of the benchmark are marked with the [Benchmark] attribute.

Generating strings with Bogus

I relied on Bogus to create dummy values. This NuGet library allows you to generate realistic values for your objects with a great level of customization.

The string array generation strategy is shared across all the benchmarks, so I moved it to a static method:

 public static class StringArrayGenerator
 {
     public static string[] Generate(int size, params string[] additionalStrings)
     {
         string[] array = new string[size];
         Faker faker = new Faker();

         List<string> fixedValues = [
             string.Empty,
             "   ",
             "\n  \t",
             null
         ];

         if (additionalStrings != null)
             fixedValues.AddRange(additionalStrings);

         for (int i = 0; i < array.Length; i++)
         {
             if (Random.Shared.Next() % 4 == 0)
             {
                 array[i] = Random.Shared.GetItems<string>(fixedValues.ToArray(), 1).First();
             }
             else
             {
                 array[i] = faker.Lorem.Word();
             }
         }

         return array;
     }
 }
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Here I have a default set of predefined values ([string.Empty, " ", "\n \t", null]), which can be expanded with the values coming from the additionalStrings array. These values are then placed in random positions of the array.

In most cases, though, the value of the string is defined by Bogus.

Generating plots with chartbenchmark.net

To generate the plots you will see in this article, I relied on chartbenchmark.net, a fantastic tool that transforms the output generated by BenchmarkDotNet on the console in a dynamic, customizable plot. This tool created by Carlos Villegas is available on GitHub, and it surely deserves a star!

Please note that all the plots in this article have a Log10 scale: this scale allows me to show you the performance values of all the executions in the same plot. If I used the Linear scale, you would be able to see only the biggest values.

We are ready. It's time to run some benchmarks!

Tip #1: StringBuilder is (almost always) better than String Concatenation

Let's start with a simple trick: if you need to concatenate strings, using a StringBuilder is generally more efficient than concatenating string.

[MemoryDiagnoser]
public class StringBuilderVsConcatenation()
{
    [Params(4, 100, 10_000, 100_000)]
    public int Size;

    public string[] AllStrings { get; set; }

    [IterationSetup]
    public void Setup()
    {
        AllStrings = StringArrayGenerator.Generate(Size, "hello!", "HELLO!");
    }

    [Benchmark]
    public void WithStringBuilder()
    {
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

        foreach (string s in AllStrings)
        {
            sb.Append(s);
        }

        var finalString = sb.ToString();
    }

    [Benchmark]
    public void WithConcatenation()
    {
        string finalString = "";
        foreach (string s in AllStrings)
        {
            finalString += s;
        }
    }
}
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Whenever you concatenate strings with the + sign, you create a new instance of a string. This operation takes some time and allocates memory for every operation.

On the contrary, using a StringBuilder object, you can add the strings in memory and generate the final string using a performance-wise method.

Here's the result table:

Method Size Mean Error StdDev Median Ratio RatioSD Allocated Alloc Ratio
WithStringBuilder 4 4.891 us 0.5568 us 1.607 us 4.750 us 1.00 0.00 1016 B 1.00
WithConcatenation 4 3.130 us 0.4517 us 1.318 us 2.800 us 0.72 0.39 776 B 0.76
WithStringBuilder 100 7.649 us 0.6596 us 1.924 us 7.650 us 1.00 0.00 4376 B 1.00
WithConcatenation 100 13.804 us 1.1970 us 3.473 us 13.800 us 1.96 0.82 51192 B 11.70
WithStringBuilder 10000 113.091 us 4.2106 us 12.081 us 111.000 us 1.00 0.00 217200 B 1.00
WithConcatenation 10000 74,512.259 us 2,111.4213 us 6,058.064 us 72,593.050 us 666.43 91.44 466990336 B 2,150.05
WithStringBuilder 100000 1,037.523 us 37.1009 us 108.225 us 1,012.350 us 1.00 0.00 2052376 B 1.00
WithConcatenation 100000 7,469,344.914 us 69,720.9843 us 61,805.837 us 7,465,779.900 us 7,335.08 787.44 46925872520 B 22,864.17

Let's see it as a plot.

Beware of the scale in the diagram!: it's a Log10 scale, so you'd better have a look at the value displayed on the Y-axis.

StringBuilder vs string concatenation in C#: performance benchmark

As you can see, there is a considerable performance improvement.

There are some remarkable points:

  1. When there are just a few strings to concatenate, the + operator is more performant, both on timing and allocated memory;
  2. When you need to concatenate 100000 strings, the concatenation is ~7000 times slower than the string builder.

In conclusion, use the StringBuilder to concatenate more than 5 or 6 strings. Use the string concatenation for smaller operations.

Edit 2024-01-08: turn out that string.Concat has an overload that accepts an array of strings. string.Concat(string[]) is actually faster than using the StringBuilder. Read more this article by Robin Choffardet.

Tip #2: EndsWith(string) vs EndsWith(char): pick the right overload

One simple improvement can be made if you use StartsWith or EndsWith, passing a single character.

There are two similar overloads: one that accepts a string, and one that accepts a char.

[MemoryDiagnoser]
public class EndsWithStringVsChar()
{
    [Params(100, 1000, 10_000, 100_000, 1_000_000)]
    public int Size;

    public string[] AllStrings { get; set; }

    [IterationSetup]
    public void Setup()
    {
        AllStrings = StringArrayGenerator.Generate(Size);
    }

    [Benchmark(Baseline = true)]
    public void EndsWithChar()
    {
    foreach (string s in AllStrings)
    {
        _ = s?.EndsWith('e');
    }
    }

    [Benchmark]
    public void EndsWithString()
    {
    foreach (string s in AllStrings)
    {
        _ = s?.EndsWith("e");
    }
    }
}
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We have the following results:

Method Size Mean Error StdDev Median Ratio
EndsWithChar 100 2.189 us 0.2334 us 0.6771 us 2.150 us 1.00
EndsWithString 100 5.228 us 0.4495 us 1.2970 us 5.050 us 2.56
EndsWithChar 1000 12.796 us 1.2006 us 3.4831 us 12.200 us 1.00
EndsWithString 1000 30.434 us 1.8783 us 5.4492 us 29.250 us 2.52
EndsWithChar 10000 25.462 us 2.0451 us 5.9658 us 23.950 us 1.00
EndsWithString 10000 251.483 us 18.8300 us 55.2252 us 262.300 us 10.48
EndsWithChar 100000 209.776 us 18.7782 us 54.1793 us 199.900 us 1.00
EndsWithString 100000 826.090 us 44.4127 us 118.5465 us 781.650 us 4.14
EndsWithChar 1000000 2,199.463 us 74.4067 us 217.0480 us 2,190.600 us 1.00
EndsWithString 1000000 7,506.450 us 190.7587 us 562.4562 us 7,356.250 us 3.45

Again, let's generate the plot using the Log10 scale:

EndsWith(char) vs EndsWith(string) in C# performance benchmark

They appear to be almost identical, but look closely: based on this benchmark, when we have 10000, using EndsWith(string) is 10x slower than EndsWith(char).

Also, here, the duration ratio on the 1.000.000-items array is ~3.5. At first, I thought there was an error on the benchmark, but when rerunning it on the benchmark, the ratio did not change.

It looks like you have the best improvement ratio when the array has ~10.000 items.

Tip #3: IsNullOrEmpty vs IsNullOrWhitespace vs IsNullOrEmpty + Trim

As you might know, string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace performs stricter checks than string.IsNullOrEmpty.

(If you didn't know, have a look at this quick explanation of the cases covered by these methods).

Does it affect performance?

To demonstrate it, I have created three benchmarks: one for string.IsNullOrEmpty, one for string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace, and another one that lays in between: it first calls Trim() on the string, and then calls string.IsNullOrEmpty.

[MemoryDiagnoser]
public class StringEmptyBenchmark
{
    [Params(100, 1000, 10_000, 100_000, 1_000_000)]
    public int Size;

    public string[] AllStrings { get; set; }

    [IterationSetup]
    public void Setup()
    {
        AllStrings = StringArrayGenerator.Generate(Size);
    }

    [Benchmark(Baseline = true)]
    public void StringIsNullOrEmpty()
    {
        foreach (string s in AllStrings)
        {
            _ = string.IsNullOrEmpty(s);
        }
    }

    [Benchmark]
    public void StringIsNullOrEmptyWithTrim()
    {
        foreach (string s in AllStrings)
        {
            _ = string.IsNullOrEmpty(s?.Trim());
        }
    }

    [Benchmark]
    public void StringIsNullOrWhitespace()
    {
        foreach (string s in AllStrings)
        {
            _ = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(s);
        }
    }
}
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We have the following values:

Method Size Mean Error StdDev Ratio
StringIsNullOrEmpty 100 1.723 us 0.2302 us 0.6715 us 1.00
StringIsNullOrEmptyWithTrim 100 2.394 us 0.3525 us 1.0282 us 1.67
StringIsNullOrWhitespace 100 2.017 us 0.2289 us 0.6604 us 1.45
StringIsNullOrEmpty 1000 10.885 us 1.3980 us 4.0781 us 1.00
StringIsNullOrEmptyWithTrim 1000 20.450 us 1.9966 us 5.8240 us 2.13
StringIsNullOrWhitespace 1000 13.160 us 1.0851 us 3.1482 us 1.34
StringIsNullOrEmpty 10000 18.717 us 1.1252 us 3.2464 us 1.00
StringIsNullOrEmptyWithTrim 10000 52.786 us 1.2208 us 3.5222 us 2.90
StringIsNullOrWhitespace 10000 46.602 us 1.2363 us 3.4668 us 2.54
StringIsNullOrEmpty 100000 168.232 us 12.6948 us 36.0129 us 1.00
StringIsNullOrEmptyWithTrim 100000 439.744 us 9.3648 us 25.3182 us 2.71
StringIsNullOrWhitespace 100000 394.310 us 7.8976 us 20.5270 us 2.42
StringIsNullOrEmpty 1000000 2,074.234 us 64.3964 us 186.8257 us 1.00
StringIsNullOrEmptyWithTrim 1000000 4,691.103 us 112.2382 us 327.4040 us 2.28
StringIsNullOrWhitespace 1000000 4,198.809 us 83.6526 us 161.1702 us 2.04

As you can see from the Log10 table, the results are pretty similar:

string.IsNullOrEmpty vs string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace vs Trim in C#: performance benchmark

On average, StringIsNullOrWhitespace is ~2 times slower than StringIsNullOrEmpty.

So, what should we do? Here's my two cents:

  1. For all the data coming from the outside (passed as input to your system, received from an API call, read from the database), use string.IsNUllOrWhiteSpace: this way you can ensure that you are not receiving unexpected data;
  2. If you read data from an external API, customize your JSON deserializer to convert whitespace strings as empty values;
  3. Needless to say, choose the proper method depending on the use case. If a string like "\n \n \t" is a valid value for you, use string.IsNullOrEmpty.

Tip #4: ToUpper vs ToUpperInvariant vs ToLower vs ToLowerInvariant: they look similar, but they are not

Even though they look similar, there is a difference in terms of performance between these four methods.

[MemoryDiagnoser]
public class ToUpperVsToLower()
{
    [Params(100, 1000, 10_000, 100_000, 1_000_000)]
    public int Size;

    public string[] AllStrings { get; set; }

    [IterationSetup]
    public void Setup()
    {
        AllStrings = StringArrayGenerator.Generate(Size);
    }

    [Benchmark]
    public void WithToUpper()
    {
        foreach (string s in AllStrings)
        {
            _ = s?.ToUpper();
        }
    }

    [Benchmark]
    public void WithToUpperInvariant()
    {
        foreach (string s in AllStrings)
        {
            _ = s?.ToUpperInvariant();
        }
    }

    [Benchmark]
    public void WithToLower()
    {
        foreach (string s in AllStrings)
        {
            _ = s?.ToLower();
        }
    }

    [Benchmark]
    public void WithToLowerInvariant()
    {
        foreach (string s in AllStrings)
        {
            _ = s?.ToLowerInvariant();
        }
    }
}
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What will this benchmark generate?

Method Size Mean Error StdDev Median P95 Ratio
WithToUpper 100 9.153 us 0.9720 us 2.789 us 8.200 us 14.980 us 1.57
WithToUpperInvariant 100 6.572 us 0.5650 us 1.639 us 6.200 us 9.400 us 1.14
WithToLower 100 6.881 us 0.5076 us 1.489 us 7.100 us 9.220 us 1.19
WithToLowerInvariant 100 6.143 us 0.5212 us 1.529 us 6.100 us 8.400 us 1.00
WithToUpper 1000 69.776 us 9.5416 us 27.833 us 68.650 us 108.815 us 2.60
WithToUpperInvariant 1000 51.284 us 7.7945 us 22.860 us 38.700 us 89.290 us 1.85
WithToLower 1000 49.520 us 5.6085 us 16.449 us 48.100 us 79.110 us 1.85
WithToLowerInvariant 1000 27.000 us 0.7370 us 2.103 us 26.850 us 30.375 us 1.00
WithToUpper 10000 241.221 us 4.0480 us 3.588 us 240.900 us 246.560 us 1.68
WithToUpperInvariant 10000 339.370 us 42.4036 us 125.028 us 381.950 us 594.760 us 1.48
WithToLower 10000 246.861 us 15.7924 us 45.565 us 257.250 us 302.875 us 1.12
WithToLowerInvariant 10000 143.529 us 2.1542 us 1.910 us 143.500 us 146.105 us 1.00
WithToUpper 100000 2,165.838 us 84.7013 us 223.137 us 2,118.900 us 2,875.800 us 1.66
WithToUpperInvariant 100000 1,885.329 us 36.8408 us 63.548 us 1,894.500 us 1,967.020 us 1.41
WithToLower 100000 1,478.696 us 23.7192 us 50.547 us 1,472.100 us 1,571.330 us 1.10
WithToLowerInvariant 100000 1,335.950 us 18.2716 us 35.203 us 1,330.100 us 1,404.175 us 1.00
WithToUpper 1000000 20,936.247 us 414.7538 us 1,163.014 us 20,905.150 us 22,928.350 us 1.64
WithToUpperInvariant 1000000 19,056.983 us 368.7473 us 287.894 us 19,085.400 us 19,422.880 us 1.41
WithToLower 1000000 14,266.714 us 204.2906 us 181.098 us 14,236.500 us 14,593.035 us 1.06
WithToLowerInvariant 1000000 13,464.127 us 266.7547 us 327.599 us 13,511.450 us 13,926.495 us 1.00

Let's see it as the usual Log10 plot:

ToUpper vs ToLower comparison in C#: performance benchmark

We can notice a few points:

  1. The ToUpper family is generally slower than the ToLower family;
  2. The Invariant family is faster than the non-Invariant one; we will see more below;

So, if you have to normalize strings using the same casing, ToLowerInvariant is the best choice.

Tip #5: OrdinalIgnoreCase vs InvariantCultureIgnoreCase: logically (almost) equivalent, but with different performance

Comparing strings is trivial: the string.Compare method is all you need.

There are several modes to compare strings: you can specify the comparison rules by setting the comparisonType parameter, which accepts a StringComparison value.

[MemoryDiagnoser]
public class StringCompareOrdinalVsInvariant()
{
    [Params(100, 1000, 10_000, 100_000, 1_000_000)]
    public int Size;

    public string[] AllStrings { get; set; }

    [IterationSetup]
    public void Setup()
    {
        AllStrings = StringArrayGenerator.Generate(Size, "hello!", "HELLO!");
    }

    [Benchmark(Baseline = true)]
    public void WithOrdinalIgnoreCase()
    {
        foreach (string s in AllStrings)
        {
            _ = string.Equals(s, "hello!", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase);
        }
    }

    [Benchmark]
    public void WithInvariantCultureIgnoreCase()
    {
        foreach (string s in AllStrings)
        {
            _ = string.Equals(s, "hello!", StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase);
        }
    }
}
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Let's see the results:

Method Size Mean Error StdDev Ratio
WithOrdinalIgnoreCase 100 2.380 us 0.2856 us 0.8420 us 1.00
WithInvariantCultureIgnoreCase 100 7.974 us 0.7817 us 2.3049 us 3.68
WithOrdinalIgnoreCase 1000 11.316 us 0.9170 us 2.6603 us 1.00
WithInvariantCultureIgnoreCase 1000 35.265 us 1.5455 us 4.4591 us 3.26
WithOrdinalIgnoreCase 10000 20.262 us 1.1801 us 3.3668 us 1.00
WithInvariantCultureIgnoreCase 10000 225.892 us 4.4945 us 12.5289 us 11.41
WithOrdinalIgnoreCase 100000 148.270 us 11.3234 us 32.8514 us 1.00
WithInvariantCultureIgnoreCase 100000 1,811.144 us 35.9101 us 64.7533 us 12.62
WithOrdinalIgnoreCase 1000000 2,050.894 us 59.5966 us 173.8460 us 1.00
WithInvariantCultureIgnoreCase 1000000 18,138.063 us 360.1967 us 986.0327 us 8.87

As you can see, there's a HUGE difference between Ordinal and Invariant.

When dealing with 100.000 items, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase is 12 times slower than StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase!

Ordinal vs InvariantCulture comparison in C#: performance benchmark

Why? Also, why should we use one instead of the other?

Have a look at this code snippet:

var s1 = "Aa";
var s2 = "A" + new string('\u0000', 3) + "a";

string.Equals(s1, s2, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase); //True
string.Equals(s1, s2, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase); //False
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As you can see, s1 and s2 represent equivalent, but not equal, strings. We can then deduce that OrdinalIgnoreCase checks for the exact values of the characters, while InvariantCultureIgnoreCase checks the string's "meaning".

So, in most cases, you might want to use OrdinalIgnoreCase (as always, it depends on your use case!)

Tip #6: Newtonsoft vs System.Text.Json: it's a matter of memory allocation, not time

For the last benchmark, I created the exact same model used as an example in the official documentation.

This benchmark aims to see which JSON serialization library is faster: Newtonsoft or System.Text.Json?

[MemoryDiagnoser]
public class JsonSerializerComparison
{
    [Params(100, 10_000, 1_000_000)]
    public int Size;
    List<User?> Users { get; set; }

    [IterationSetup]
    public void Setup()
    {
        Users = UsersCreator.GenerateUsers(Size);
    }

    [Benchmark(Baseline = true)]
    public void WithJson()
    {
        foreach (User? user in Users)
        {
            var asString = System.Text.Json.JsonSerializer.Serialize(user);

            _ = System.Text.Json.JsonSerializer.Deserialize<User?>(asString);
        }
    }

    [Benchmark]
    public void WithNewtonsoft()
    {
        foreach (User? user in Users)
        {
            string asString = Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.SerializeObject(user);
            _ = Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<User?>(asString);
        }
    }
}
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As you might know, the .NET team has added lots of performance improvements to the JSON Serialization functionalities, and you can really see the difference!

Method Size Mean Error StdDev Median Ratio RatioSD Gen0 Gen1 Allocated Alloc Ratio
WithJson 100 2.063 ms 0.1409 ms 0.3927 ms 1.924 ms 1.00 0.00 - - 292.87 KB 1.00
WithNewtonsoft 100 4.452 ms 0.1185 ms 0.3243 ms 4.391 ms 2.21 0.39 - - 882.71 KB 3.01
WithJson 10000 44.237 ms 0.8787 ms 1.3936 ms 43.873 ms 1.00 0.00 4000.0000 1000.0000 29374.98 KB 1.00
WithNewtonsoft 10000 78.661 ms 1.3542 ms 2.6090 ms 78.865 ms 1.77 0.08 14000.0000 1000.0000 88440.99 KB 3.01
WithJson 1000000 4,233.583 ms 82.5804 ms 113.0369 ms 4,202.359 ms 1.00 0.00 484000.0000 1000.0000 2965741.56 KB 1.00
WithNewtonsoft 1000000 5,260.680 ms 101.6941 ms 108.8116 ms 5,219.955 ms 1.24 0.04 1448000.0000 1000.0000 8872031.8 KB 2.99

As you can see, Newtonsoft is 2x slower than System.Text.Json, and it allocates 3x the memory compared with the other library.

So, well, if you don't use library-specific functionalities, I suggest you replace Newtonsoft with System.Text.Json.

Wrapping up

In this article, we learned that even tiny changes can make a difference in the long run.

Let's recap some:

  1. Using StringBuilder is generally WAY faster than using string concatenation unless you need to concatenate 2 to 4 strings;
  2. Sometimes, the difference is not about execution time but memory usage;
  3. EndsWith and StartsWith perform better if you look for a char instead of a string. If you think of it, it totally makes sense!
  4. More often than not, string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace performs better checks than string.IsNullOrEmpty; however, there is a huge difference in terms of performance, so you should pick the correct method depending on the usage;
  5. ToUpper and ToLower look similar; however, ToLower is quite faster than ToUpper;
  6. Ordinal and Invariant comparison return the same value for almost every input; but Ordinal is faster than Invariant;
  7. Newtonsoft performs similarly to System.Text.Json, but it allocates way more memory.

This article first appeared on Code4IT 🐧

My suggestion is always the same: take your time to explore the possibilities! Toy with your code, try to break it, benchmark it. You'll find interesting takes!

I hope you enjoyed this article! Let's keep in touch on Twitter or LinkedIn! 🤜🤛

Happy coding!

🐧

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