问:Java中的异常处理真的很慢吗?

传统观点以及大量谷歌结果表明,不应该将异常逻辑用于Java中的正常程序流。通常会给出两个原因,

它真的很慢——甚至比普通代码慢一个数量级(给出的原因各不相同),

and

它很混乱,因为人们只希望在异常代码中处理错误。

这个问题是关于第一条的。

As an example, this page describes Java exception handling as "very slow" and relates the slowness to the creation of the exception message string - "this string is then used in creating the exception object that is thrown. This is not fast." The article Effective Exception Handling in Java says that "the reason for this is due to the object creation aspect of exception handling, which thereby makes throwing exceptions inherently slow". Another reason out there is that the stack trace generation is what slows it down.

My testing (using Java 1.6.0_07, Java HotSpot 10.0, on 32 bit Linux), indicates that exception handling is no slower than regular code. I tried running a method in a loop that executes some code. At the end of the method, I use a boolean to indicate whether to return or throw. This way the actual processing is the same. I tried running the methods in different orders and averaging my test times, thinking it may have been the JVM warming up. In all my tests, the throw was at least as fast as the return, if not faster (up to 3.1% faster). I am completely open to the possibility that my tests were wrong, but I haven't seen anything out there in the way of the code sample, test comparisons, or results in the last year or two that show exception handling in Java to actually be slow.

引导我走上这条路的是我需要使用的一个API,它将抛出异常作为正常控制逻辑的一部分。我想纠正它们的用法,但现在我可能做不到。我是否应该赞美他们的前瞻思维?

在论文《即时编译中的高效Java异常处理》中,作者建议,即使没有抛出异常,仅异常处理程序的存在就足以阻止JIT编译器正确优化代码,从而降低代码的速度。我还没有测试过这个理论。


当前回答

It depends how exceptions are implemented. The simplest way is using setjmp and longjmp. That means all registers of the CPU are written to the stack (which already takes some time) and possibly some other data needs to be created... all this already happens in the try statement. The throw statement needs to unwind the stack and restore the values of all registers (and possible other values in the VM). So try and throw are equally slow, and that is pretty slow, however if no exception is thrown, exiting the try block takes no time whatsoever in most cases (as everything is put on the stack which cleans up automatically if the method exists).

Sun和其他人认识到,这可能是次优的,当然随着时间的推移,虚拟机会变得越来越快。还有另一种实现异常的方法,它使try本身闪电般快(实际上try本身根本不会发生任何事情——当类被VM加载时,需要发生的一切都已经完成了),并且它使throw不那么慢。我不知道哪个JVM使用了这种新的、更好的技术……

...但你是在用Java写代码,所以你的代码以后只能在一个特定系统的一个JVM上运行吗?因为如果它可以在任何其他平台或任何其他JVM版本(可能是任何其他供应商的)上运行,谁说他们也使用快速实现呢?速度快的要比速度慢的复杂得多,而且不容易在所有系统上实现。你想要便携吗?那就不要指望异常会很快。

It also makes a big difference what you do within a try block. If you open a try block and never call any method from within this try block, the try block will be ultra fast, as the JIT can then actually treat a throw like a simple goto. It neither needs to save stack-state nor does it need to unwind the stack if an exception is thrown (it only needs to jump to the catch handlers). However, this is not what you usually do. Usually you open a try block and then call a method that might throw an exception, right? And even if you just use the try block within your method, what kind of method will this be, that does not call any other method? Will it just calculate a number? Then what for do you need exceptions? There are much more elegant ways to regulate program flow. For pretty much anything else but simple math, you will have to call an external method and this already destroys the advantage of a local try block.

请看下面的测试代码:

public class Test {
    int value;


    public int getValue() {
        return value;
    }

    public void reset() {
        value = 0;
    }

    // Calculates without exception
    public void method1(int i) {
        value = ((value + i) / i) << 1;
        // Will never be true
        if ((i & 0xFFFFFFF) == 1000000000) {
            System.out.println("You'll never see this!");
        }
    }

    // Could in theory throw one, but never will
    public void method2(int i) throws Exception {
        value = ((value + i) / i) << 1;
        // Will never be true
        if ((i & 0xFFFFFFF) == 1000000000) {
            throw new Exception();
        }
    }

    // This one will regularly throw one
    public void method3(int i) throws Exception {
        value = ((value + i) / i) << 1;
        // i & 1 is equally fast to calculate as i & 0xFFFFFFF; it is both
        // an AND operation between two integers. The size of the number plays
        // no role. AND on 32 BIT always ANDs all 32 bits
        if ((i & 0x1) == 1) {
            throw new Exception();
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int i;
        long l;
        Test t = new Test();

        l = System.currentTimeMillis();
        t.reset();
        for (i = 1; i < 100000000; i++) {
            t.method1(i);
        }
        l = System.currentTimeMillis() - l;
        System.out.println(
            "method1 took " + l + " ms, result was " + t.getValue()
        );

        l = System.currentTimeMillis();
        t.reset();
        for (i = 1; i < 100000000; i++) {
            try {
                t.method2(i);
            } catch (Exception e) {
                System.out.println("You'll never see this!");
            }
        }
        l = System.currentTimeMillis() - l;
        System.out.println(
            "method2 took " + l + " ms, result was " + t.getValue()
        );

        l = System.currentTimeMillis();
        t.reset();
        for (i = 1; i < 100000000; i++) {
            try {
                t.method3(i);
            } catch (Exception e) {
                // Do nothing here, as we will get here
            }
        }
        l = System.currentTimeMillis() - l;
        System.out.println(
            "method3 took " + l + " ms, result was " + t.getValue()
        );
    }
}

结果:

method1 took 972 ms, result was 2
method2 took 1003 ms, result was 2
method3 took 66716 ms, result was 2

try块的减速太小,无法排除后台进程等混杂因素。但是catch block杀死了一切,让它慢了66倍!

正如我所说,如果将try/catch和throw都放在同一个方法(method3)中,结果不会那么糟糕,但这是我不依赖的特殊JIT优化。即使使用这种优化,抛出仍然非常慢。我不知道你们想做什么,但肯定有比try/catch/throw更好的方法。

其他回答

我用JVM 1.5做了一些性能测试,使用异常至少慢了两倍。平均:一个非常小的方法的执行时间超过3倍(3倍)。一个必须捕获异常的小循环的自时间增加了2倍。

我在产品代码和微基准测试中也看到过类似的数字。

异常绝对不应该用于任何频繁调用的东西。每秒抛出数千个异常将导致巨大的瓶颈。

例如,使用“Integer.ParseInt(…)”在一个非常大的文本文件中找到所有错误的值——非常糟糕的想法。(我曾在产品代码上看到过这种实用方法的性能下降)

使用异常在用户GUI表单上报告错误的值,从性能的角度来看可能并不是那么糟糕。

无论这是否是一个好的设计实践,我都会遵循这样的规则:如果错误是正常的/预期的,那么就使用返回值。如果不正常,请使用异常。例如:读取用户输入,错误值是正常的—使用错误代码。将值传递给内部实用程序函数时,应该通过调用代码来过滤坏值——使用异常。

Java和c#中的异常性能还有待改进。

作为程序员,这迫使我们遵循“异常应该很少引起”的规则,仅仅是出于实际性能的考虑。

However, as computer scientists, we should rebel against this problematic state. The person authoring a function often has no idea how often it will be called, or whether success or failure is more likely. Only the caller has this information. Trying to avoid exceptions leads to unclear API idoms where in some cases we have only clean-but-slow exception versions, and in other cases we have fast-but-clunky return-value errors, and in still other cases we end up with both. The library implementor may have to write and maintain two versions of APIs, and the caller has to decide which of two versions to use in each situation.

这里有点乱。如果异常具有更好的性能,我们就可以避免这些笨拙的习惯用法,并按照它们应该使用的方式使用异常……作为结构化错误返回工具。

我真的希望看到异常机制使用更接近返回值的技术来实现,这样我们的性能就能更接近返回值。因为这是我们在性能敏感代码中恢复的内容。

下面是一个比较异常性能和错误返回值性能的代码示例。

公共类test {

int value;


public int getValue() {
    return value;
}

public void reset() {
    value = 0;
}

public boolean baseline_null(boolean shouldfail, int recurse_depth) {
    if (recurse_depth <= 0) {
        return shouldfail;
    } else {
        return baseline_null(shouldfail,recurse_depth-1);
    }
}

public boolean retval_error(boolean shouldfail, int recurse_depth) {
    if (recurse_depth <= 0) {
        if (shouldfail) {
            return false;
        } else {
            return true;
        }
    } else {
        boolean nested_error = retval_error(shouldfail,recurse_depth-1);
        if (nested_error) {
            return true;
        } else {
            return false;
        }
    }
}

public void exception_error(boolean shouldfail, int recurse_depth) throws Exception {
    if (recurse_depth <= 0) {
        if (shouldfail) {
            throw new Exception();
        }
    } else {
        exception_error(shouldfail,recurse_depth-1);
    }

}

public static void main(String[] args) {
    int i;
    long l;
    TestIt t = new TestIt();
    int failures;

    int ITERATION_COUNT = 100000000;


    // (0) baseline null workload
    for (int recurse_depth = 2; recurse_depth <= 10; recurse_depth+=3) {
        for (float exception_freq = 0.0f; exception_freq <= 1.0f; exception_freq += 0.25f) {            
            int EXCEPTION_MOD = (exception_freq == 0.0f) ? ITERATION_COUNT+1 : (int)(1.0f / exception_freq);            

            failures = 0;
            long start_time = System.currentTimeMillis();
            t.reset();              
            for (i = 1; i < ITERATION_COUNT; i++) {
                boolean shoulderror = (i % EXCEPTION_MOD) == 0;
                t.baseline_null(shoulderror,recurse_depth);
            }
            long elapsed_time = System.currentTimeMillis() - start_time;
            System.out.format("baseline: recurse_depth %s, exception_freqeuncy %s (%s), time elapsed %s ms\n",
                    recurse_depth, exception_freq, failures,elapsed_time);
        }
    }


    // (1) retval_error
    for (int recurse_depth = 2; recurse_depth <= 10; recurse_depth+=3) {
        for (float exception_freq = 0.0f; exception_freq <= 1.0f; exception_freq += 0.25f) {            
            int EXCEPTION_MOD = (exception_freq == 0.0f) ? ITERATION_COUNT+1 : (int)(1.0f / exception_freq);            

            failures = 0;
            long start_time = System.currentTimeMillis();
            t.reset();              
            for (i = 1; i < ITERATION_COUNT; i++) {
                boolean shoulderror = (i % EXCEPTION_MOD) == 0;
                if (!t.retval_error(shoulderror,recurse_depth)) {
                    failures++;
                }
            }
            long elapsed_time = System.currentTimeMillis() - start_time;
            System.out.format("retval_error: recurse_depth %s, exception_freqeuncy %s (%s), time elapsed %s ms\n",
                    recurse_depth, exception_freq, failures,elapsed_time);
        }
    }

    // (2) exception_error
    for (int recurse_depth = 2; recurse_depth <= 10; recurse_depth+=3) {
        for (float exception_freq = 0.0f; exception_freq <= 1.0f; exception_freq += 0.25f) {            
            int EXCEPTION_MOD = (exception_freq == 0.0f) ? ITERATION_COUNT+1 : (int)(1.0f / exception_freq);            

            failures = 0;
            long start_time = System.currentTimeMillis();
            t.reset();              
            for (i = 1; i < ITERATION_COUNT; i++) {
                boolean shoulderror = (i % EXCEPTION_MOD) == 0;
                try {
                    t.exception_error(shoulderror,recurse_depth);
                } catch (Exception e) {
                    failures++;
                }
            }
            long elapsed_time = System.currentTimeMillis() - start_time;
            System.out.format("exception_error: recurse_depth %s, exception_freqeuncy %s (%s), time elapsed %s ms\n",
                    recurse_depth, exception_freq, failures,elapsed_time);              
        }
    }
}

}

结果如下:

baseline: recurse_depth 2, exception_freqeuncy 0.0 (0), time elapsed 683 ms
baseline: recurse_depth 2, exception_freqeuncy 0.25 (0), time elapsed 790 ms
baseline: recurse_depth 2, exception_freqeuncy 0.5 (0), time elapsed 768 ms
baseline: recurse_depth 2, exception_freqeuncy 0.75 (0), time elapsed 749 ms
baseline: recurse_depth 2, exception_freqeuncy 1.0 (0), time elapsed 731 ms
baseline: recurse_depth 5, exception_freqeuncy 0.0 (0), time elapsed 923 ms
baseline: recurse_depth 5, exception_freqeuncy 0.25 (0), time elapsed 971 ms
baseline: recurse_depth 5, exception_freqeuncy 0.5 (0), time elapsed 982 ms
baseline: recurse_depth 5, exception_freqeuncy 0.75 (0), time elapsed 947 ms
baseline: recurse_depth 5, exception_freqeuncy 1.0 (0), time elapsed 937 ms
baseline: recurse_depth 8, exception_freqeuncy 0.0 (0), time elapsed 1154 ms
baseline: recurse_depth 8, exception_freqeuncy 0.25 (0), time elapsed 1149 ms
baseline: recurse_depth 8, exception_freqeuncy 0.5 (0), time elapsed 1133 ms
baseline: recurse_depth 8, exception_freqeuncy 0.75 (0), time elapsed 1117 ms
baseline: recurse_depth 8, exception_freqeuncy 1.0 (0), time elapsed 1116 ms
retval_error: recurse_depth 2, exception_freqeuncy 0.0 (0), time elapsed 742 ms
retval_error: recurse_depth 2, exception_freqeuncy 0.25 (24999999), time elapsed 743 ms
retval_error: recurse_depth 2, exception_freqeuncy 0.5 (49999999), time elapsed 734 ms
retval_error: recurse_depth 2, exception_freqeuncy 0.75 (99999999), time elapsed 723 ms
retval_error: recurse_depth 2, exception_freqeuncy 1.0 (99999999), time elapsed 728 ms
retval_error: recurse_depth 5, exception_freqeuncy 0.0 (0), time elapsed 920 ms
retval_error: recurse_depth 5, exception_freqeuncy 0.25 (24999999), time elapsed 1121   ms
retval_error: recurse_depth 5, exception_freqeuncy 0.5 (49999999), time elapsed 1037 ms
retval_error: recurse_depth 5, exception_freqeuncy 0.75 (99999999), time elapsed 1141   ms
retval_error: recurse_depth 5, exception_freqeuncy 1.0 (99999999), time elapsed 1130 ms
retval_error: recurse_depth 8, exception_freqeuncy 0.0 (0), time elapsed 1218 ms
retval_error: recurse_depth 8, exception_freqeuncy 0.25 (24999999), time elapsed 1334  ms
retval_error: recurse_depth 8, exception_freqeuncy 0.5 (49999999), time elapsed 1478 ms
retval_error: recurse_depth 8, exception_freqeuncy 0.75 (99999999), time elapsed 1637 ms
retval_error: recurse_depth 8, exception_freqeuncy 1.0 (99999999), time elapsed 1655 ms
exception_error: recurse_depth 2, exception_freqeuncy 0.0 (0), time elapsed 726 ms
exception_error: recurse_depth 2, exception_freqeuncy 0.25 (24999999), time elapsed 17487   ms
exception_error: recurse_depth 2, exception_freqeuncy 0.5 (49999999), time elapsed 33763   ms
exception_error: recurse_depth 2, exception_freqeuncy 0.75 (99999999), time elapsed 67367   ms
exception_error: recurse_depth 2, exception_freqeuncy 1.0 (99999999), time elapsed 66990 ms
exception_error: recurse_depth 5, exception_freqeuncy 0.0 (0), time elapsed 924 ms
exception_error: recurse_depth 5, exception_freqeuncy 0.25 (24999999), time elapsed 23775  ms
exception_error: recurse_depth 5, exception_freqeuncy 0.5 (49999999), time elapsed 46326 ms
exception_error: recurse_depth 5, exception_freqeuncy 0.75 (99999999), time elapsed 91707 ms
exception_error: recurse_depth 5, exception_freqeuncy 1.0 (99999999), time elapsed 91580 ms
exception_error: recurse_depth 8, exception_freqeuncy 0.0 (0), time elapsed 1144 ms
exception_error: recurse_depth 8, exception_freqeuncy 0.25 (24999999), time elapsed 30440 ms
exception_error: recurse_depth 8, exception_freqeuncy 0.5 (49999999), time elapsed 59116   ms
exception_error: recurse_depth 8, exception_freqeuncy 0.75 (99999999), time elapsed 116678 ms
exception_error: recurse_depth 8, exception_freqeuncy 1.0 (99999999), time elapsed 116477 ms

检查和传播返回值与基线空调用相比确实增加了一些成本,而该成本与调用深度成正比。在调用链深度为8时,错误返回值检查版本比不检查返回值的基线版本慢了约27%。

相比之下,异常性能不是调用深度的函数,而是异常频率的函数。然而,随着异常频率的增加,这种退化更为显著。当错误频率只有25%时,代码运行速度变慢了24倍。当错误频率为100%时,异常版本几乎要慢100倍。

这在我看来可能是在我们的异常实现中做出了错误的权衡。异常可以更快,可以避免代价高昂的跟踪遍历,也可以直接将异常转换为编译器支持的返回值检查。在此之前,当我们希望代码运行得更快时,我们不得不避免它们。

即使抛出异常并不慢,对于正常的程序流抛出异常仍然是一个坏主意。使用这种方式,它是类似于GOTO…

我想这并没有真正回答问题。我想抛出异常的“传统”智慧在早期的java版本(< 1.4)中是正确的。创建异常需要虚拟机创建整个堆栈跟踪。从那时起,在VM中发生了很多变化,以加快速度,这可能是已经改进的一个领域。

It depends how exceptions are implemented. The simplest way is using setjmp and longjmp. That means all registers of the CPU are written to the stack (which already takes some time) and possibly some other data needs to be created... all this already happens in the try statement. The throw statement needs to unwind the stack and restore the values of all registers (and possible other values in the VM). So try and throw are equally slow, and that is pretty slow, however if no exception is thrown, exiting the try block takes no time whatsoever in most cases (as everything is put on the stack which cleans up automatically if the method exists).

Sun和其他人认识到,这可能是次优的,当然随着时间的推移,虚拟机会变得越来越快。还有另一种实现异常的方法,它使try本身闪电般快(实际上try本身根本不会发生任何事情——当类被VM加载时,需要发生的一切都已经完成了),并且它使throw不那么慢。我不知道哪个JVM使用了这种新的、更好的技术……

...但你是在用Java写代码,所以你的代码以后只能在一个特定系统的一个JVM上运行吗?因为如果它可以在任何其他平台或任何其他JVM版本(可能是任何其他供应商的)上运行,谁说他们也使用快速实现呢?速度快的要比速度慢的复杂得多,而且不容易在所有系统上实现。你想要便携吗?那就不要指望异常会很快。

It also makes a big difference what you do within a try block. If you open a try block and never call any method from within this try block, the try block will be ultra fast, as the JIT can then actually treat a throw like a simple goto. It neither needs to save stack-state nor does it need to unwind the stack if an exception is thrown (it only needs to jump to the catch handlers). However, this is not what you usually do. Usually you open a try block and then call a method that might throw an exception, right? And even if you just use the try block within your method, what kind of method will this be, that does not call any other method? Will it just calculate a number? Then what for do you need exceptions? There are much more elegant ways to regulate program flow. For pretty much anything else but simple math, you will have to call an external method and this already destroys the advantage of a local try block.

请看下面的测试代码:

public class Test {
    int value;


    public int getValue() {
        return value;
    }

    public void reset() {
        value = 0;
    }

    // Calculates without exception
    public void method1(int i) {
        value = ((value + i) / i) << 1;
        // Will never be true
        if ((i & 0xFFFFFFF) == 1000000000) {
            System.out.println("You'll never see this!");
        }
    }

    // Could in theory throw one, but never will
    public void method2(int i) throws Exception {
        value = ((value + i) / i) << 1;
        // Will never be true
        if ((i & 0xFFFFFFF) == 1000000000) {
            throw new Exception();
        }
    }

    // This one will regularly throw one
    public void method3(int i) throws Exception {
        value = ((value + i) / i) << 1;
        // i & 1 is equally fast to calculate as i & 0xFFFFFFF; it is both
        // an AND operation between two integers. The size of the number plays
        // no role. AND on 32 BIT always ANDs all 32 bits
        if ((i & 0x1) == 1) {
            throw new Exception();
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int i;
        long l;
        Test t = new Test();

        l = System.currentTimeMillis();
        t.reset();
        for (i = 1; i < 100000000; i++) {
            t.method1(i);
        }
        l = System.currentTimeMillis() - l;
        System.out.println(
            "method1 took " + l + " ms, result was " + t.getValue()
        );

        l = System.currentTimeMillis();
        t.reset();
        for (i = 1; i < 100000000; i++) {
            try {
                t.method2(i);
            } catch (Exception e) {
                System.out.println("You'll never see this!");
            }
        }
        l = System.currentTimeMillis() - l;
        System.out.println(
            "method2 took " + l + " ms, result was " + t.getValue()
        );

        l = System.currentTimeMillis();
        t.reset();
        for (i = 1; i < 100000000; i++) {
            try {
                t.method3(i);
            } catch (Exception e) {
                // Do nothing here, as we will get here
            }
        }
        l = System.currentTimeMillis() - l;
        System.out.println(
            "method3 took " + l + " ms, result was " + t.getValue()
        );
    }
}

结果:

method1 took 972 ms, result was 2
method2 took 1003 ms, result was 2
method3 took 66716 ms, result was 2

try块的减速太小,无法排除后台进程等混杂因素。但是catch block杀死了一切,让它慢了66倍!

正如我所说,如果将try/catch和throw都放在同一个方法(method3)中,结果不会那么糟糕,但这是我不依赖的特殊JIT优化。即使使用这种优化,抛出仍然非常慢。我不知道你们想做什么,但肯定有比try/catch/throw更好的方法。

为什么异常回报率会比正常回报率慢呢?

只要不将堆栈跟踪输出到终端,将其保存到一个文件或类似的文件中,catch块就不会比其他代码块做更多的工作。所以,我无法想象为什么“throw new my_cool_error()”应该这么慢。

好问题,我期待关于这个话题的进一步信息!