.Clone() or Arrays.Copyof()

.clone() or Arrays.copyOf()?

Update using jmh

Using jmh, I get similar results, except that clone seems to be marginally better.

Original post

I ran a quick test for performance: clone, System.arrayCopy and Arrays.copyOf have very similar performance (jdk 1.7.06, server vm).

For details (in ms), after JIT:

clone: 68

arrayCopy: 68

Arrays.copyOf: 68

Test code:

public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException,
        IOException {
    int sum = 0;
    int[] warmup = new int[1];
    warmup[0] = 1;
    for (int i = 0; i < 15000; i++) { // triggers JIT
        sum += copyClone(warmup);
        sum += copyArrayCopy(warmup);
        sum += copyCopyOf(warmup);
    }

    int count = 10_000_000;
    int[] array = new int[count];
    for (int i = 0; i < count; i++) {
        array[i] = i;
    }

    // additional warmup for main
    for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
        sum += copyArrayCopy(array);
    }
    System.gc();
    // copyClone
    long start = System.nanoTime();
    for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
        sum += copyClone(array);
    }
    long end = System.nanoTime();
    System.out.println("clone: " + (end - start) / 1000000);
    System.gc();
    // copyArrayCopy
    start = System.nanoTime();
    for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
        sum += copyArrayCopy(array);
    }
    end = System.nanoTime();
    System.out.println("arrayCopy: " + (end - start) / 1000000);
    System.gc();
    // copyCopyOf
    start = System.nanoTime();
    for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
        sum += copyCopyOf(array);
    }
    end = System.nanoTime();
    System.out.println("Arrays.copyOf: " + (end - start) / 1000000);
    // sum
    System.out.println(sum);
}

private static int copyClone(int[] array) {
    int[] copy = array.clone();
    return copy[copy.length - 1];
}

private static int copyArrayCopy(int[] array) {
    int[] copy = new int[array.length];
    System.arraycopy(array, 0, copy, 0, array.length);
    return copy[copy.length - 1];
}

private static int copyCopyOf(int[] array) {
    int[] copy = Arrays.copyOf(array, array.length);
    return copy[copy.length - 1];
}

Why clone() is the best way for copying arrays?

I would like to make some points about why clone() is the fastest way to copy an array than System.arraycopy(..) or others:

1. clone() doesn't have to do the typechecking before copying a source array to the destination one as provided here. It just simple allocates new memory space and assigns the objects to it. On the other hand, System.arraycopy(..) checks for the type and then copies an array.

2. clone() also breaks the optimization to eliminate redundant zeroing. As you know, every allocated array in Java must be initialized with 0s or respective default values. However, JIT can avoid zeroing this array if it sees that the array is filled right after creation. That makes it definitely faster compared to changing the copy values with existing 0s or respective default values. While using System.arraycopy(..) spends significant amount of time clearing and copying the initialized array. To do so I have performed some of the benchmark tests.

@BenchmarkMode(Mode.Throughput)
@Fork(1)
@State(Scope.Thread)
@Warmup(iterations = 10, time = 1, batchSize = 1000)
@Measurement(iterations = 10, time = 1, batchSize = 1000)
public class BenchmarkTests {

    @Param({"1000","100","10","5", "1"})
    private int size;
    private int[] original;

    @Setup
    public void setup() {
        original = new int[size];
        for (int i = 0; i < size; i++) {
            original[i] = i;
        }
    }

    @Benchmark
    public int[] SystemArrayCopy() {
        final int length = size;
        int[] destination = new int[length];
        System.arraycopy(original, 0, destination, 0, length);
        return destination;
    }

    @Benchmark
    public int[] arrayClone() {
        return original.clone();
    }

}

Output:

Benchmark                        (size)   Mode  Cnt       Score      Error  Units
ArrayCopy.SystemArrayCopy            1  thrpt   10   26324.251 ± 1532.265  ops/s
ArrayCopy.SystemArrayCopy            5  thrpt   10   26435.562 ± 2537.114  ops/s
ArrayCopy.SystemArrayCopy           10  thrpt   10   27262.200 ± 2145.334  ops/s
ArrayCopy.SystemArrayCopy          100  thrpt   10   10524.117 ±  474.325  ops/s
ArrayCopy.SystemArrayCopy         1000  thrpt   10     984.213 ±  121.934  ops/s
ArrayCopy.arrayClone                 1  thrpt   10   55832.672 ± 4521.112  ops/s
ArrayCopy.arrayClone                 5  thrpt   10   48174.496 ± 2728.928  ops/s
ArrayCopy.arrayClone                10  thrpt   10   46267.482 ± 4641.747  ops/s
ArrayCopy.arrayClone               100  thrpt   10   19837.480 ±  364.156  ops/s
ArrayCopy.arrayClone              1000  thrpt   10    1841.145 ±  110.322  ops/s

According to the outputs I am getting that clone is almost twice fast from System.arraycopy(..)

3. Also, using manual copying method like clone() results into faster ouput because it doesn't have to make any VM calls (unlike System.arraycopy()).

clone() method in ArrayList, why Arrays.copyOf()?

No it doesn't, the first method creates a copy of the underlying array (attention: it's a copy of the array - not the objects in the array!).

The latter creates an ArrayList that points to the same array as the original object.

Example:

    String[][] s1 = {{new String("a"), new String("b")}};
    String[][] s2 = s1.clone();
    System.out.println(Arrays.toString(s1)); // prints [[Ljava.lang.String;@7440e464]
    System.out.println(Arrays.toString(s2)); // prints [[Ljava.lang.String;@7440e464]
    System.out.println(s1[0] == s2[0]); // prints true
    System.out.println(s1 == s2); // prints false - because s2 != s1

Since the array of arrays is an object, and the item in the first place (s[0]) is an array itself (which is an object as well) - you can see that clone simply copied the reference to the objects.

What is more efficient: System.arraycopy or Arrays.copyOf?

The difference is that Arrays.copyOf does not only copy elements, it also creates a new array. System.arraycopy copies into an existing array.

Here is the source for Arrays.copyOf, as you can see it uses System.arraycopy internally to fill up the new array:

public static <T,U> T[] copyOf(U[] original, int newLength, Class<? extends T[]> newType) {
    T[] copy = ((Object)newType == (Object)Object[].class)
        ? (T[]) new Object[newLength]
        : (T[]) Array.newInstance(newType.getComponentType(), newLength);
    System.arraycopy(original, 0, copy, 0,
                     Math.min(original.length, newLength));
    return copy;
}

Does Arrays.copyOf produce a shallow or a deep copy?

It produces a shallow copy, i.e. a new array that contains "old" references (to the same objects, those are not being copied).

In particular, if you have nested arrays, those will not be copied. You will just get a new array whose "top level" points to the same "second level" arrays as the original did. Any changes inside those nested arrays will be reflected in both copy and original.

This test suggests that the copy is deep:

No, it does not. When you assign a new object to the "original" array, this does not affect the copy. It is, after all, a copy.

This is the same situation as:

String x = "foo";
String y = x;
x = "bar";

assertEquals(y, "foo");

No "deep copy" here.

Is there any reason to prefer System.arraycopy() over clone()?

No. If you're really microbenchmarking, then maybe, depending on what JVM you're running. But in actuality, no.

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