ByteArrayBuilder: A simplfied version of java.nio.ByteBuffer

I was doing some work in video streaming from mobile phones to PC recently and I was dealing with a lot of byte array streams from client to server, which I also needed to collocate on the server side. 

I decided to write a class that simplifies the whole process, making the array management process as simple as using StringBuilder in Java; but for byte arrays.

"Why did you need to do that when you could use java.nio.ByteBuffer?" you may ask me, but well sometimes you need something simpler in usage and well you wonder secretly, if you can do it faster.

So I wrote ByteArrayBuilder.java
I didn't think of benchmarking it that much since I had little thought about it. I was more focused on the ease of use.

Recently however, I asked Github Copilot to analyze the file and it told me a lot about it, including the fact that I was better off with using java.nio.ByteBuffer . What I was doing was tantamount to reinventing the wheel according to the AI. It also advised me to run benchmarks of ByteArrayBuilder.java against java.nio.ByteBuffer. And that was what I did.

I wrote a benchmark found at: ByteArrayBuilderWars.java
Here are the results:

I sent a  number of byte arrays say 

numberOfArrays

and each of these byte arrays had a size of

dataArraySize

public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {

        int dataArraySize = 10000;
        int numberOfArrays = 100000;
        
        for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
            ByteArrayBuilder builder = ByteArrayBuilderWars.benchmarkAppendForByteArrayBuilder(dataArraySize, numberOfArrays);
            ByteBuffer buffer = ByteArrayBuilderWars.benchmarkAppendForByteBuffer(dataArraySize, numberOfArrays);

            ByteArrayBuilderWars.benchmarkReadBytes(builder);
            ByteArrayBuilderWars.benchmarkReadBytes(buffer);
        }

    }

Here are the results:

RESULTS for append ops(ms)

arraySize	numArrays	ByteArrayBuilder(ms)	java.nio.ByteBuffer(ms)
10000	100	22.166	14.363
10000	100	11.36	10.988
10000	100	12.43	11.959
10000	100	10.382	11.187
10000	100	11.041	11.182

RESULTS for bytes-reader ops(ms)

arraySize	numArrays	ByteArrayBuilder(ms)	java.nio.ByteBuffer(ms)
10000	100	0.005	0.477
10000	100	0.009	0.737
10000	100	0.005	0.589
10000	100	0.006	0.154
10000	100	0.005	0.146

RESULTS for append ops(ms)

arraySize	numArrays	ByteArrayBuilder(ms)	java.nio.ByteBuffer(ms)
10000	1000	120.38	110.924
10000	1000	104.201	105.941
10000	1000	103.048	102.265
10000	1000	103.61	102.372
10000	1000	102.899	101.902

RESULTS for bytes-reader ops(ms)

arraySize	numArrays	ByteArrayBuilder(ms)	java.nio.ByteBuffer(ms)
10000	1000	0.008	5.089
10000	1000	0.006	2.847
10000	1000	0.005	2.734
10000	1000	0.005	2.896
10000	1000	0.007	2.681

RESULTS for append ops(ms)

arraySize	numArrays	ByteArrayBuilder(ms)	java.nio.ByteBuffer(ms)
10000	10000	1106.589	1077.174
10000	10000	1023.701	1012.844
10000	10000	1067.048	1041.951
10000	10000	1049.663	1029.896
10000	10000	1069.867	1046.699

RESULTS for bytes-reader ops(ms)

arraySize	numArrays	ByteArrayBuilder(ms)	java.nio.ByteBuffer(ms)
10000	10000	0.005	30.745
10000	10000	0.006	22.519
10000	10000	0.003	24.707
10000	10000	0.003	24.299
10000	10000	0.003	25.242

The results say it all. I ran each result row and took the average of 10 samples of the quantity being measured, then I recorded 5 samples of the said average.




The append rates are very much similar, though java.nio.ByteBuffer consistently outperforms ByteArrayBuilder, even though, it is ever so slightly.

There are at least 3 instances though where the ByteArrayBuilder outperforms the java.nio.ByteBuffer

, even though the difference once again is ever so minute.

When it comes to reading the bytes though, it is a classic massacre.
The ByteArrayBuilder is thousands of time faster than the java.nio.ByteBuffer every single time.

This is because when well written, the ByteArrayBuilder has the array to be read at the ready and simply returns it.

So Github Copilot, sorry ByteArrayBuilder  is a much better choice than the java.nio.ByteBuffer for simple byte array collocation and reading.

Thanks guys.

You can view the class and its benchmarks on Github at ByteArrayBuilder.java  and

 ByteArrayBuilderWars.java , respectively