[SOLVED] Which one is performance wise to clear a string builder?

Issue

Q :

Which one is performance wise : to clear a string builder

AStringBuilder.Remove(0,AStringBuilder.Length);

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string theString = AStringBuilder.ToString();
ABuilder.Replace(theString,String.Empty);

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AStringBuilder.Length = 0;

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Note : I use Framework 3.5 which doesn’t contain Clear() method.

Solution

Update It turns out that you are using .net 3.5 and Clear was added in .net 4. So you should use Length = 0. Actually I’d probably add an extension method named Clear to do this since it is far more readable, in my view, than Length = 0.

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I would use none of those and instead call Clear.

Clear is a convenience method that is equivalent to setting the Length property of the current instance to 0 (zero).

I can’t imagine that it’s slower than any of your variants and I also can’t imagine that clearing a StringBuilder instance could ever be a bottleneck. If there is a bottleneck anywhere it will be in the appending code.

If performance of clearing the object really is a bottleneck then you will need to time your code to know which variant is faster. There’s never a real substitute for benchmarking when considering performance.

Answered By – David Heffernan

Answer Checked By – Marie Seifert (BugsFixing Admin)