Why does reusing arrays increase performance so significantly in c#?
- by Willem
In my code, I perform a large number of tasks, each requiring a large array of memory to temporarily store data. I have about 500 tasks. At the beginning of each task, I allocate memory for
an array :
double[] tempDoubleArray = new double[M];
M is a large number depending on the precise task, typically around 2000000. Now, I do some complex calculations to fill the array, and in the end I use the array to determine the result of this task. After that, the tempDoubleArray goes out of scope.
Profiling reveals that the calls to construct the arrays are time consuming. So, I decide to try and reuse the array, by making it static and reusing it. It requires some additional juggling to
figure out the minimum size of the array, requiring an extra pass through all tasks, but it works. Now, the program is much faster (from 80 sec to 22 sec for execution of all tasks).
double[] tempDoubleArray = staticDoubleArray;
However, I'm a bit in the dark of why precisely this works so well. Id say that in the original code, when the tempDoubleArray goes out of scope, it can be collected, so allocating a new array should not be that hard right?
I ask this because understanding why it works might help me figuring out other ways to achieve the same effect, and because I would like to know in what cases allocation gives performance issues.
