[Mono-devel-list] Zero Length Arrays

[Ben Maurer]

Hello,

In my optimization work, I have found one interesting problem. According
the C# design guidelines:


> String and Array properties should never return a null reference. Null
> can be difficult to understand in this context.... The general rule is
> that null, empty string (""), and empty (0 item) arrays should be
> treated the same way. Return an empty array instead of a null
> reference.

However, this leads to a problem. In code such as:

ArrayList listBuilder;
// Build up the list
object [] ret = new object [listBuilder.Count];
// copy
// return

You often end up creating arrays of zero length. This cases extra memory
allocation. So, in many performance critical places, we do:

static object [] noObjects = new object [0];

..
if (listBuilder.Count == 0) return noObjects;

However, this pattern is very messy. It requires alot more thinking on
the part of the programmer. It also will not work for something, like
say, ArrayList.ToArray.

So, I talked with Miguel about this problem. My first idea what that MCS
could optimize this. In other words, if you did:

new object [0];

That it would create a static field for you that held the object.
However, this really didnt fix the problem. You still had to think about
it, and add an if statement.

So, today, I realized that there is a VERY simple solution. In
mono_array_new, if it finds that it will be creating a zero length
array, it should used a cached zero length array.

For this to be a win, I think we must do it so that we need not lock in
that method. I would love comments from the runtime gurus.

-- Ben