[[ There are some good answers here but I find that they still are lacking a bit of information. ]]
return (new StringBuilder("select id1, " + " id2 " + " from " + " table"))
.toString();
So as you point out, the example you give is a simplistic but let's analyze it anyway. What happens here is the compiler actually does the +
work here because "select id1, " + " id2 " + " from " + " table"
are all constants. So this turns into:
return new StringBuilder("select id1, id2 from table").toString();
In this case, obviously, there is no point in using StringBuilder
. You might as well do:
// the compiler combines these constant strings
return "select id1, " + " id2 " + " from " + " table";
However, even if you were appending any fields or other non-constants then the compiler would use an internal StringBuilder
-- there's no need for you to define one:
// an internal StringBuilder is used here
return "select id1, " + fieldName + " from " + tableName;
Under the covers, this turns into code that is approximately equivalent to:
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder("select id1, ");
sb.append(fieldName).append(" from ").append(tableName);
return sb.toString();
Really the only time you need to use StringBuilder
directly is when you have conditional code. For example, code that looks like the following is desperate for a StringBuilder
:
// 1 StringBuilder used in this line
String query = "select id1, " + fieldName + " from " + tableName;
if (where != null) {
// another StringBuilder used here
query += ' ' + where;
}
The +
in the first line uses one StringBuilder
instance. Then the +=
uses another StringBuilder
instance. It is more efficient to do:
// choose a good starting size to lower chances of reallocation
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(64);
sb.append("select id1, ").append(fieldName).append(" from ").append(tableName);
// conditional code
if (where != null) {
sb.append(' ').append(where);
}
return sb.toString();
Another time that I use a StringBuilder
is when I'm building a string from a number of method calls. Then I can create methods that take a StringBuilder
argument:
private void addWhere(StringBuilder sb) {
if (where != null) {
sb.append(' ').append(where);
}
}
When you are using a StringBuilder
, you should watch for any usage of +
at the same time:
sb.append("select " + fieldName);
That +
will cause another internal StringBuilder
to be created. This should of course be:
sb.append("select ").append(fieldName);
Lastly, as @T.J.rowder points out, you should always make a guess at the size of the StringBuilder
. This will save on the number of char[]
objects created when growing the size of the internal buffer.