Why are my null checks so slow?

Question

So I have code that currently looks like this

    public boolean in(TransactionType... types)
    {
        if (types == null || types.length == 0)
            return false;

        for (int i = 0; i < types.length; ++i)
            if (types[i] != null && types[i] == this)
                return true;
        return false;
    }

I changed it to this

    public boolean in(TransactionType... types)
    {
        if (types == null || types.length == 0)
            return false;

        for (int i = 0; i < types.length; ++i)
            if (types[i] == this)
                return true;
        return false;
    }

(TransactionType is an enum with roughly 30 values in it)

The results shocked me. In all of my tests, the second was an order of magnitude faster. I expected maybe 2x faster, but not an order of magnitude. Why the difference? Is it the nullcheck that is that much slower or is something strange happening with the extra array access?

My benchmark code looks like this

public class App
{
    public enum TransactionType
    {
        A(1, "A", "A"),
        B(3, "B", "B"),
        C(5, "C", "C"),
        D(6, "D", "D"),
        E(7, "E", "E"),
        F(8, "F", "F"),
        G(9, "G", "G"),
        H(10, "H", "H"),
        I(11, "I", "I"),
        J(12, "J", "J"),
        K(13, "K", "K"),
        L(14, "L", "L"),
        M(15, "M", "M"),
        N(16, "N", "N"),
        O(17, "O", "O"),
        P(18, "P", "P"),
        Q(19, "Q", "Q"),
        R(20, "R", "R"),
        S(21, "S", "S"),
        T(22, "T", "T"),
        U(25, "U", "U"),
        V(26, "V", "V"),
        W(27, "W", "W"),
        X(28, "X", "X"),
        Y(29, "Y", "Y"),
        Z(30, "Z", "Z"),
        AA(31, "AA", "AA"),
        AB(32, "AB", "AB"),
        AC(33, "AC", "AC"),
        AD(35, "AD", "AD"),
        AE(36, "AE", "AE"),
        AF(37, "AF", "AF"),
        AG(38, "AG", "AG"),
        AH(39, "AH", "AH"),
        AI(40, "AI", "AI"),
        AJ(41, "AJ", "AJ"),
        AK(42, "AK", "AK"),
        AL(43, "AL", "AL"),
        AM(44, "AM", "AM"),
        AN(45, "AN", "AN"),
        AO(46, "AO", "AO"),
        AP(47, "AP", "AP");

        public final static TransactionType[] aArray =
        {
            O, Z, N, Y, AB
        };

        public final static TransactionType[] bArray =
        {
            J, P, AA, L, Q, M, K, AE, AK,
            AF, AD, AG, AH
        };

        public final static TransactionType[] cArray =
        {
            S, U, V
        };

        public final static TransactionType[] dArray =
        {
            A, B, D, G, C, E,
            T, R, I, F, H, AC,
            AI, AJ, AL, AM, AN,
            AO
        };

        private int id;
        private String abbrev;
        private String name;

        private TransactionType(int id, String abbrev, String name)
        {
            this.id = id;
            this.abbrev = abbrev;
            this.name = name;
        }

        public boolean in(TransactionType... types)
        {
            if (types == null || types.length == 0)
                return false;

            for (int i = 0; i < types.length; ++i)
                if (types[i] == this)
                    return true;
            return false;
        }

        public boolean inOld(TransactionType... types)
        {
            if (types == null || types.length == 0)
                return false;

            for (int i = 0; i < types.length; ++i)
            {
                if (types[i] != null && types[i] == this)
                    return true;
            }
            return false;
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        for (int i = 0; i < 10; ++i)
            bench2();

        for (int i = 0; i < 10; ++i)
            bench1();
    }

    private static void bench1()
    {
        final TransactionType[] values = TransactionType.values();
        long runs = 0;
        long currTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
        while (System.currentTimeMillis() - currTime < 1000)
        {
            for (TransactionType value : values)
            {
                value.inOld(TransactionType.dArray);
            }
            ++runs;
        }
        System.out.println("old " + runs);
    }

    private static void bench2()
    {
        final TransactionType[] values = TransactionType.values();
        long runs = 0;
        long currTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
        while (System.currentTimeMillis() - currTime < 1000)
        {
            for (TransactionType value : values)
            {
                value.in(TransactionType.dArray);
            }
            ++runs;
        }
        System.out.println("new " + runs);
    }
}

Here are the results of the benchmark running

new 20164901
new 20084651
new 45739657
new 45735251
new 45757756
new 45726575
new 45413016
new 45649661
new 45325360
new 45380665
old 2021652
old 2022286
old 2246888
old 2237484
old 2246172
old 2268073
old 2271554
old 2259544
old 2272642
old 2268579

This is using Oracle JDK 1.7.0.67

Answer 1

The null check doesn't accomplish anything and I'm also surprised it makes such a difference. But I believe your comments essentially answered your own question.

@Cogman wrote:

...iterating over an array involves very little branching and is a highly local operation (meaning it is likely to take a lot of advantage of the CPUs cache). The type of branching is also highly predictable and optimized for in most modern CPUs...

If you compile your class and use javap to print out the disassembled byte code for those two methods you will see:

  public boolean in(App$TransactionType...);
Code:
   0: aload_1       
   1: ifnull        9
   4: aload_1       
   5: arraylength   
   6: ifne          11
   9: iconst_0      
  10: ireturn       
  11: iconst_0      
  12: istore_2      
  13: iload_2       
  14: aload_1       
  15: arraylength   
  16: if_icmpge     34
  19: aload_1       
  20: iload_2       
  21: aaload        
  22: aload_0       
  23: if_acmpne     28
  26: iconst_1      
  27: ireturn       
  28: iinc          2, 1
  31: goto          13
  34: iconst_0      
  35: ireturn       

And also:

 public boolean inOld(App$TransactionType...);
Code:
   0: aload_1       
   1: ifnull        9
   4: aload_1       
   5: arraylength   
   6: ifne          11
   9: iconst_0      
  10: ireturn       
  11: iconst_0      
  12: istore_2      
  13: iload_2       
  14: aload_1       
  15: arraylength   
  16: if_icmpge     40
  19: aload_1       
  20: iload_2       
  21: aaload        
  22: ifnull        34
  25: aload_1       
  26: iload_2       
  27: aaload        
  28: aload_0       
  29: if_acmpne     34
  32: iconst_1      
  33: ireturn       
  34: iinc          2, 1
  37: goto          13
  40: iconst_0      
  41: ireturn       

Your new method removed six of the operations and one of the potential branch sites.

The loop was tight before, now its super tight.

I would have thought that Java would have JIT'd both these methods to essentially the same thing. Your timing numbers suggested otherwise.

Some random numbers:

1.6.33 32b : 646100 vs 727173

1.6.33 64b : 1667665 vs 2668513

1.7.67 32b : 661003 vs 716417

1.7.07 64b : 1663926 vs 32493989

1.7.60 64b : 1700574 vs 32368506

1.8.20 64b : 1648382 vs 32222823

All of the 64-bit JVM's execute both implementations much faster than the 32-bit versions.