You might be aware that VB.NET supports at least 4 techniques to append strings:
1) the & operator (or the + operator)
2) the String.Concat static method
3) the String.Format static method
4) the StringBuilder object and its Append and Insert methods
By peeking at the code that the VB.NET compiler generates for the
& (or +) operator, you can quickly realize that this operator is
rendered as a call to the String.Concat method, thus using
either technique #1 or #2 has no impact on performance and is just a matter of coding
style. I usually prefer the & operator over String.Concat for readibility's sake, and I
guess most VBers do the same, but it should be clear that the two are
perfectly equivalent if you are concerned only about speed. (NOTE: when working with values other than strings, you might find String.Concat more readable, because it doesn't force you to explicitly invoke the ToString() method of each operand.)
When working with long strings that undergo many concatenations, the StringBuilder object is the fastest technique, period. Too much digital ink has been spilled on this topic, and I won't repeat those well-known concepts here. (BTW, if you're looking for a smart way to replace the & operator
with the StringBuilder object without messing up your existing code,
read here.)
However, when you have to perform a few concatenations on many short strings, the overhead needed to setup the StringBuilder object often shadows the benefits of its Append method. In these scenarios, the choice is among techniques #1 (or #2, which is equivalent) and technique #3. Today I decided to take some time to compare their performance. I run 100,000 concatenations over two or more 10-char strings. Here are the results on my on a 2.20 GHz Core Duo, 2G RAM Dell notebook running Vista (timings are in milliseconds and are averaged over several runs):
# of operands Concat Format
2 12 60
3 22 95
4 28 150
5 125 160
6 185 192
7 210 215
8 235 239
9 270 272
To summarise, the Concat method runs 4-5 times faster than Format with 4 operands of fewer, but there is no significant difference with 6 or more operands. It is interesting to notice the steep increase (from 28 to 125 milliseconds) for the Concat method when passing fro 4 to 5 arguments. The reason: there is no String.Concat overload that takes 4 arguments, therefore the VB.NET (and C#) compiler has to build a temporary array with 5 elements and pass it to the String.Concat overload that takes a ParamArray. The same thing happens with the String.Format method when you pass from 3 to 4 arguments.
In general, I prefer to use the String.Format method when appending 3 or more strings, except inside time-critical code. For example, I use it for building error messages and other UI elements; in this case the loss of speed rarely (or never) affects the overall execution speed. Another advantage of String.Format is that you can easily create a table of messages and store them on a database, an XML file, or just a plain text file (possibly stored as a resource). For example, all VB Migration Partner error and warning messages are stored in a format like this:
Using the '{0}' Windows API method as an argument to the '{1}' function might result in an string filled with spaces. Please split the next line in two statements.
This approach makes the code more readable and maintenable. Plus, localizing the code for a language other than English will be a breeze, if I ever need to.
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Speaking ofconcatenations, the fact that Concat, Format and other static methods of the System.String class have an overload that takes a ParamArray (and therefore a standard array) makes it possible to implement a few nice tricks. For example, you can quickly concatenate all the elements in an array using this code:
Dim arr() As String = {"one", "two", "three", "four"}
Dim res As String = String.Concat(arr) ' => onetwothreefour
If you need to use a delimiter between each element or concatenate onlya subset of the array, use the String.Join method:
res = String.Join(" ", arr) ' => one two three four
res = String.Join(" ", arr, 1, 2) ' => two three
When working with arrays of 10 elements or fewer, or you are interested in just the first 10 elements, you can use the Format method in creative ways, as in this code:
' display elements in random order
res = String.Format("{3} {1} {0} {2}", arr) ' => four two one three