Java 9 StackWalker API microbenchmark

The goal of this microbenchmark is to see how fast the StackWalker API introduced in Java9.

Implementation details

This benchmark is composed of two files. StackTraceBenchmark measures how long it takes to retrieve the 5 last elements of a stack trace without actually using them. It serves as the baseline for the second experiment. FileAndLineNumberBenchmark measures how long it takes to get the file name and line number of those elements.

All the information contained in this README file are based on JDK 9 build 125.

The implementation of StackFrameInfo.java converts a StackFrame into a StackTraceElement before the file name and line number can be retrieved. Each call of getFileName(), getMethodName() and getLineNumber() creates a new StackTraceElement. Getting the class name, method name and bytecode index do not require such a conversion. Therefore, FileAndLineNumberBenchmark contains the following methods:

• exception gets those information by building a new Exception and getting its stack trace

• stackwalkerWithFileNameAndLineNumber gets those information by calling the three methods getFileName(), getMethodName() and getLineNumber()

• stackwalkerWithExplicitStackTraceElement does the same but first converts the StackFrame to a StackTraceElement and reuses it

• stackwalkerWithClassMethodAndBCI only gets the class name, method name and bytecode index

• stackwalkerWithClassAndBCI only gets the class name and bytecode index

Results

The StackWalker API is faster than the typical way by a 2x factor. However, calling getFileName(), getMethodName() and getLineNumber() on StackFrame() imply a substantial cost.

$ java -jar target/microbenchmarks.jar -f 5 -wi 10 -i 10
[...]
# Run complete. Total time: 00:10:24

Benchmark                                                            Mode  Cnt      Score     Error  Units
StackTraceBenchmark.exception                                        avgt   50  17002,587 ± 355,071  ns/op
StackTraceBenchmark.stackwalker                                      avgt   50   4456,895 ± 109,627  ns/op
FileAndLineNumberBenchmark.exception                                 avgt   50  17907,933 ± 336,197  ns/op
FileAndLineNumberBenchmark.stackwalkerWithFileNameAndLineNumber      avgt   50  11225,741 ± 216,263  ns/op
FileAndLineNumberBenchmark.stackwalkerWithExplicitStackTraceElement  avgt   50   8989,665 ± 134,605  ns/op
FileAndLineNumberBenchmark.stackwalkerWithClassMethodAndBCI          avgt   50   6955,292 ± 169,572  ns/op
FileAndLineNumberBenchmark.stackwalkerWithClassAndBCI                avgt   50   4620,220 ± 115,719  ns/op

Todo

• Find out if using the class name and BCI allow to uniquely identify a method and line in a file.

Licence

This project is licenced under the MIT licence. See the LICENSE file for details.