[Mono-bugs] [Bug 52395][Wis] New - System.Buffer.BlockCopy is slower than System.Array.Copy

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Fri, 9 Jan 2004 09:53:15 -0500 (EST)


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Changed by vargaz@freemail.hu.

http://bugzilla.ximian.com/show_bug.cgi?id=52395

--- shadow/52395	2004-01-09 09:53:15.000000000 -0500
+++ shadow/52395.tmp.9093	2004-01-09 09:53:15.000000000 -0500
@@ -0,0 +1,76 @@
+Bug#: 52395
+Product: Mono/Runtime
+Version: unspecified
+OS: unknown
+OS Details: 
+Status: NEW   
+Resolution: 
+Severity: Unknown
+Priority: Wishlist
+Component: misc
+AssignedTo: mono-bugs@ximian.com                            
+ReportedBy: bmaurer@users.sf.net               
+QAContact: mono-bugs@ximian.com
+TargetMilestone: ---
+URL: 
+Cc: 
+Summary: System.Buffer.BlockCopy is slower than System.Array.Copy
+
+Description of Problem:
+According to MSDN:
+"[The System.Buffer] class provides better performance for manipulating
+primitive types than similar methods in the Array class."
+
+However, on Mono, it is actually the other way around. This can have
+serious performance implications for trying to optimize code.
+
+Steps to reproduce the problem:
+class T {
+	const int sz = 128;
+	static void Main () {
+		byte [] src = new byte [sz];
+		byte [] dst = new byte [sz];
+		
+		for (int i = 0; i < 10000000; i++) {
+#if BUFFER
+			System.Buffer.BlockCopy
+#else
+			System.Array.Copy
+#endif
+				(src, 0, dst, 0, sz);
+		}
+	}
+}
+
+Actual Results:
+[benm@Ben tmp]$ mcs bytebuff.cs /d:BUFFER /out:buffer.exe; mcs bytebuff.cs
+/out:arraycopy.exe
+[benm@Ben tmp]$ time mono buffer.exe ; time mono arraycopy.exe 
+
+real    0m15.677s
+user    0m6.630s
+sys     0m0.150s
+ 
+real    0m7.572s
+user    0m3.280s
+sys     0m0.060s
+
+
+Expected Results:
+The Buffer version should be as fast as, or preferably faster than, the
+Array version
+
+How often does this happen? 
+Always
+
+Additional Information:
+I tested this on MS windows and by eye, the performance was better with the
+Buffer version (there is sadly no timer on Windows, so I wasnt able to
+tell). However, there was not a visiable gap as in Mono.
+
+------- Additional Comments From vargaz@freemail.hu  2004-01-09 09:53 -------
+Actually, the two copy methods have the same performance, since each
+one uses memcpy. BlockCopy is slower because it contains three internal
+calls (for argument checking) while Array.Copy contains only one. If you
+ change 128 to 1280 (so copying time dominates), the two methods have
+approx the same performance.