Does string concatenation use StringBuilder internally?

Question

Three of my coworkers just told me that there's no reason to use a StringBuilder in place of concatenation using the + operator. In other words, this is fine to do with a bunch of strings: myString1 + myString2 + myString3 + myString4 + mySt...

The rationale that they used was that since .NET 2, the C# compiler will build the same IL if you use the + operator as if you used a StringBuilder.

This is news to me. Are they correct?

Answer 1

No, they are not correct. String concatenation creates a new string whereas StringBuilder uses a variable size buffer to build the string, only creating a string object when ToString() is called.

There are many discussions on string concatenation techniques all over the Internet if you would like to read further on the subject. Most focus on the efficiency of the different methods when used in loops. In that scenario, StringBuilder is faster over string concatenation using string operators for concatenations of 10 or more strings, which should indicate that it must be using a different method than the concatenation.

That said, if you're concatenating constant string values, the string operators will be better because the compiler will factor them away, and if your performing non-looped concatenation, using the operators will be better as they should result in a single call to string.Concat.

Answer 2

No they are not correct, it won't produce the same IL:

static string StringBuilder()
{
    var s1 = "s1";
    var s2 = "s2";
    var s3 = "s3";
    var s4 = "s4";
    var sb = new StringBuilder();
    sb.Append(s1).Append(s2).Append(s3).Append(s4);
    return sb.ToString();
}

static string Concat()
{
    var s1 = "s1";
    var s2 = "s2";
    var s3 = "s3";
    var s4 = "s4";
    return s1 + s2 + s3 + s4;
}

IL of StringBuilder:

.method private hidebysig static string StringBuilder() cil managed
{
    .maxstack 2
    .locals init (
        [0] string s1,
        [1] string s2,
        [2] string s3,
        [3] string s4,
        [4] class [mscorlib]System.Text.StringBuilder sb)
    L_0000: ldstr "s1"
    L_0005: stloc.0 
    L_0006: ldstr "s2"
    L_000b: stloc.1 
    L_000c: ldstr "s3"
    L_0011: stloc.2 
    L_0012: ldstr "s4"
    L_0017: stloc.3 
    L_0018: newobj instance void [mscorlib]System.Text.StringBuilder::.ctor()
    L_001d: stloc.s sb
    L_001f: ldloc.s sb
    L_0021: ldloc.0 
    L_0022: callvirt instance class [mscorlib]System.Text.StringBuilder [mscorlib]System.Text.StringBuilder::Append(string)
    L_0027: ldloc.1 
    L_0028: callvirt instance class [mscorlib]System.Text.StringBuilder [mscorlib]System.Text.StringBuilder::Append(string)
    L_002d: ldloc.2 
    L_002e: callvirt instance class [mscorlib]System.Text.StringBuilder [mscorlib]System.Text.StringBuilder::Append(string)
    L_0033: ldloc.3 
    L_0034: callvirt instance class [mscorlib]System.Text.StringBuilder [mscorlib]System.Text.StringBuilder::Append(string)
    L_0039: pop 
    L_003a: ldloc.s sb
    L_003c: callvirt instance string [mscorlib]System.Object::ToString()
    L_0041: ret 
}

IL of Concat:

.method private hidebysig static string Concat() cil managed
{
    .maxstack 4
    .locals init (
        [0] string s1,
        [1] string s2,
        [2] string s3,
        [3] string s4)
    L_0000: ldstr "s1"
    L_0005: stloc.0 
    L_0006: ldstr "s2"
    L_000b: stloc.1 
    L_000c: ldstr "s3"
    L_0011: stloc.2 
    L_0012: ldstr "s4"
    L_0017: stloc.3 
    L_0018: ldloc.0 
    L_0019: ldloc.1 
    L_001a: ldloc.2 
    L_001b: ldloc.3 
    L_001c: call string [mscorlib]System.String::Concat(string, string, string, string)
    L_0021: ret 
}

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