java get file size efficiently

Question

Well, I tried to measure it up with the code below:

For runs = 1 and iterations = 1 the URL method is fastest most times followed by channel. I run this with some pause fresh about 10 times. So for one time access, using the URL is the fastest way I can think of:

LENGTH sum: 10626, per Iteration: 10626.0

CHANNEL sum: 5535, per Iteration: 5535.0

URL sum: 660, per Iteration: 660.0

For runs = 5 and iterations = 50 the picture draws different.

LENGTH sum: 39496, per Iteration: 157.984

CHANNEL sum: 74261, per Iteration: 297.044

URL sum: 95534, per Iteration: 382.136

File must be caching the calls to the filesystem, while channels and URL have some overhead.

Code:

import java.io.*;
import java.net.*;
import java.util.*;

public enum FileSizeBench {

    LENGTH {
        @Override
        public long getResult() throws Exception {
            File me = new File(FileSizeBench.class.getResource(
                    "FileSizeBench.class").getFile());
            return me.length();
        }
    },
    CHANNEL {
        @Override
        public long getResult() throws Exception {
            FileInputStream fis = null;
            try {
                File me = new File(FileSizeBench.class.getResource(
                        "FileSizeBench.class").getFile());
                fis = new FileInputStream(me);
                return fis.getChannel().size();
            } finally {
                fis.close();
            }
        }
    },
    URL {
        @Override
        public long getResult() throws Exception {
            InputStream stream = null;
            try {
                URL url = FileSizeBench.class
                        .getResource("FileSizeBench.class");
                stream = url.openStream();
                return stream.available();
            } finally {
                stream.close();
            }
        }
    };

    public abstract long getResult() throws Exception;

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        int runs = 5;
        int iterations = 50;

        EnumMap<FileSizeBench, Long> durations = new EnumMap<FileSizeBench, Long>(FileSizeBench.class);

        for (int i = 0; i < runs; i++) {
            for (FileSizeBench test : values()) {
                if (!durations.containsKey(test)) {
                    durations.put(test, 0l);
                }
                long duration = testNow(test, iterations);
                durations.put(test, durations.get(test) + duration);
                // System.out.println(test + " took: " + duration + ", per iteration: " + ((double)duration / (double)iterations));
            }
        }

        for (Map.Entry<FileSizeBench, Long> entry : durations.entrySet()) {
            System.out.println();
            System.out.println(entry.getKey() + " sum: " + entry.getValue() + ", per Iteration: " + ((double)entry.getValue() / (double)(runs * iterations)));
        }

    }

    private static long testNow(FileSizeBench test, int iterations)
            throws Exception {
        long result = -1;
        long before = System.nanoTime();
        for (int i = 0; i < iterations; i++) {
            if (result == -1) {
                result = test.getResult();
                //System.out.println(result);
            } else if ((result = test.getResult()) != result) {
                 throw new Exception("variance detected!");
             }
        }
        return (System.nanoTime() - before) / 1000;
    }

}

The benchmark given by GHad measures lots of other stuff (such as reflection, instantiating objects, etc.) besides getting the length. If we try to get rid of these things then for one call I get the following times in microseconds:

   file sum___19.0, per Iteration___19.0
    raf sum___16.0, per Iteration___16.0
channel sum__273.0, per Iteration__273.0

For 100 runs and 10000 iterations I get:

   file sum__1767629.0, per Iteration__1.7676290000000001
    raf sum___881284.0, per Iteration__0.8812840000000001
channel sum___414286.0, per Iteration__0.414286

I did run the following modified code giving as an argument the name of a 100MB file.

import java.io.*;
import java.nio.channels.*;
import java.net.*;
import java.util.*;

public class FileSizeBench {

  private static File file;
  private static FileChannel channel;
  private static RandomAccessFile raf;

  public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    int runs = 1;
    int iterations = 1;

    file = new File(args[0]);
    channel = new FileInputStream(args[0]).getChannel();
    raf = new RandomAccessFile(args[0], "r");

    HashMap<String, Double> times = new HashMap<String, Double>();
    times.put("file", 0.0);
    times.put("channel", 0.0);
    times.put("raf", 0.0);

    long start;
    for (int i = 0; i < runs; ++i) {
      long l = file.length();

      start = System.nanoTime();
      for (int j = 0; j < iterations; ++j)
        if (l != file.length()) throw new Exception();
      times.put("file", times.get("file") + System.nanoTime() - start);

      start = System.nanoTime();
      for (int j = 0; j < iterations; ++j)
        if (l != channel.size()) throw new Exception();
      times.put("channel", times.get("channel") + System.nanoTime() - start);

      start = System.nanoTime();
      for (int j = 0; j < iterations; ++j)
        if (l != raf.length()) throw new Exception();
      times.put("raf", times.get("raf") + System.nanoTime() - start);
    }
    for (Map.Entry<String, Double> entry : times.entrySet()) {
        System.out.println(
            entry.getKey() + " sum: " + 1e-3 * entry.getValue() +
            ", per Iteration: " + (1e-3 * entry.getValue() / runs / iterations));
    }
  }
}

All the test cases in this post are flawed as they access the same file for each method tested. So disk caching kicks in which tests 2 and 3 benefit from. To prove my point I took test case provided by GHAD and changed the order of enumeration and below are the results.

Looking at result I think File.length() is the winner really.

Order of test is the order of output. You can even see the time taken on my machine varied between executions but File.Length() when not first, and incurring first disk access won.

---
LENGTH sum: 1163351, per Iteration: 4653.404
CHANNEL sum: 1094598, per Iteration: 4378.392
URL sum: 739691, per Iteration: 2958.764

---
CHANNEL sum: 845804, per Iteration: 3383.216
URL sum: 531334, per Iteration: 2125.336
LENGTH sum: 318413, per Iteration: 1273.652

--- 
URL sum: 137368, per Iteration: 549.472
LENGTH sum: 18677, per Iteration: 74.708
CHANNEL sum: 142125, per Iteration: 568.5

When I modify your code to use a file accessed by an absolute path instead of a resource, I get a different result (for 1 run, 1 iteration, and a 100,000 byte file -- times for a 10 byte file are identical to 100,000 bytes)

LENGTH sum: 33, per Iteration: 33.0

CHANNEL sum: 3626, per Iteration: 3626.0

URL sum: 294, per Iteration: 294.0