Optimizing Java Code !! Performance Matters !!

General optimization techniques

Optimiziation is one of most serious concern of Java. Writing a program and generating output is altogether different than to increase the performance of application. There are different ways to making the optimization, in this blog we will be discussing few :-) 

Strength reduction

Strength reduction occurs when an operation is replaced by an equivalent operation that executes faster. The most common example of strength reduction is using the shift operator to multiply and divide integers by a power of 2. For example, x >> 2 can be used in place of x / 4, and x << 1 replaces x * 2.

Common sub expression elimination

Common sub expression elimination removes redundant calculations. Instead of writing

double x = d * (lim / max) * sx;

double y = d * (lim / max) * sy;

the common sub expression is calculated once and used for both calculations:

double depth = d * (lim / max);

double x = depth * sx;

double y = depth * sy;

Code motion

Code motion moves code that performs an operation or calculates an expression whose result doesn't change, or is invariant. The code is moved so that it only executes when the result may change, rather than executing each time the result is required. This is most common with loops, but it can also involve code repeated on each invocation of a method. The following is an example of invariant code motion in a loop:

for (int i = 0; i < x.length; i++)

 x[i] *= Math.PI * Math.cos(y);

becomes

double picosy = Math.PI * Math.cos(y);for (int i = 0; i < x.length; i++)

x[i] *= picosy;

Unrolling loops

Unrolling loops reduces the overhead of loop control code by performing more than one operation each time through the loop, and consequently executing fewer iterations. Working from the previous example, if we know that the length of x[] is always a multiple of two, we might rewrite the loop as:

double picosy = Math.PI * Math.cos(y);for (int i = 0; i < x.length; i += 2) {

x[i] *= picosy;

x[i+1] *= picosy;

}

In practice, unrolling loops such as this -- in which the value of the loop index is used within the loop and must be separately incremented -- does not yield an appreciable speed increase in interpreted Java because the bytecodes lack instructions to efficiently combine the "+1" into the array index.

All of the optimization tips in this article embody one or more of the general techniques listed above.

Some Tough Interview Questions in Java

Why wait and notify is declared in Object class instead of Thread ?

In Java in order to enter critical section of code, Threads needs lock and they wait for lock, they don't know which threads holds lock instead they just know the lock is hold by some thread and they should wait for lock instead of knowing which thread is inside the synchronized block and asking them to release lock. this analogy fits with wait and notify being on object class rather than thread in Java.

Why multiple inheritance is not supported in Java ?
Reason is ambiguity around Diamond problem, consider a class A has foo() method and then B and C derived from A and has there own foo() implementation and now class D derive from B and C using multiple inheritance and if we refer just foo() compiler will not be able to decide which foo() it should invoke. This is also called Diamond problem because structure on this inheritance scenario is similar to 4 edge diamond.


Why String is immutable in Java?
String is Immutable in Java because String objects are cached in String pool. Since cached String literals are shared between multiple clients there is always a risk, where one client's action would affect all another client. For example, if one client changes the value of String "Test" to "TEST", all other clients will also see that value as explained in the first example. Since caching of String objects was important from performance reason this risk was avoided by making String class Immutable. At the same time, String was made final so that no one can compromise invariant of String class e.g. Immutability, Caching, hashcode calculation etc by extending and overriding behaviors. Another reason of why String class is immutable could die due to HashMap. Since Strings are very popular as HashMap key, it's important for them to be immutable so that they can retrieve the value object which was stored in HashMap. Since HashMap works in the principle of hashing, which requires same has value to function properly. Mutable String would produce two different hashcodes at the time of insertion and retrieval if contents of String was modified after insertion, potentially losing the value object in the map.