Just now I read some posts about List<T> vs LinkedList<T>, so I decided to benchmark some structures myself. I benchmarked Stack<T>, Queue<T>, List<T> and LinkedList<T> by adding data and removing data to/from the front/end. Here's the benchmark result:
Pushing to Stack... Time used: 7067 ticks
Poping from Stack... Time used: 2508 ticks
Enqueue to Queue... Time used: 7509 ticks
Dequeue from Queue... Time used: 2973 ticks
Insert to List at the front... Time used: 5211897 ticks
RemoveAt from List at the front... Time used: 5198380 ticks
Add to List at the end... Time used: 5691 ticks
RemoveAt from List at the end... Time used: 3484 ticks
AddFirst to LinkedList... Time used: 14057 ticks
RemoveFirst from LinkedList... Time used: 5132 ticks
AddLast to LinkedList... Time used: 9294 ticks
RemoveLast from LinkedList... Time used: 4414 ticks
Code:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Diagnostics;
namespace Benchmarking
{
static class Collections
{
public static void run()
{
Random rand = new Random();
Stopwatch sw = new Stopwatch();
Stack<int> stack = new Stack<int>();
Queue<int> queue = new Queue<int>();
List<int> list1 = new List<int>();
List<int> list2 = new List<int>();
LinkedList<int> linkedlist1 = new LinkedList<int>();
LinkedList<int> linkedlist2 = new LinkedList<int>();
int dummy;
sw.Reset();
Console.Write("{0,40}", "Pushing to Stack...");
sw.Start();
for (int i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
{
stack.Push(rand.Next());
}
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine(" Time used: {0,9} ticks", sw.ElapsedTicks);
sw.Reset();
Console.Write("{0,40}", "Poping from Stack...");
sw.Start();
for (int i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
{
dummy = stack.Pop();
dummy++;
}
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine(" Time used: {0,9} ticks\n", sw.ElapsedTicks);
sw.Reset();
Console.Write("{0,40}", "Enqueue to Queue...");
sw.Start();
for (int i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
{
queue.Enqueue(rand.Next());
}
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine(" Time used: {0,9} ticks", sw.ElapsedTicks);
sw.Reset();
Console.Write("{0,40}", "Dequeue from Queue...");
sw.Start();
for (int i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
{
dummy = queue.Dequeue();
dummy++;
}
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine(" Time used: {0,9} ticks\n", sw.ElapsedTicks);
sw.Reset();
Console.Write("{0,40}", "Insert to List at the front...");
sw.Start();
for (int i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
{
list1.Insert(0, rand.Next());
}
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine(" Time used: {0,9} ticks", sw.ElapsedTicks);
sw.Reset();
Console.Write("{0,40}", "RemoveAt from List at the front...");
sw.Start();
for (int i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
{
dummy = list1[0];
list1.RemoveAt(0);
dummy++;
}
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine(" Time used: {0,9} ticks\n", sw.ElapsedTicks);
sw.Reset();
Console.Write("{0,40}", "Add to List at the end...");
sw.Start();
for (int i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
{
list2.Add(rand.Next());
}
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine(" Time used: {0,9} ticks", sw.ElapsedTicks);
sw.Reset();
Console.Write("{0,40}", "RemoveAt from List at the end...");
sw.Start();
for (int i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
{
dummy = list2[list2.Count - 1];
list2.RemoveAt(list2.Count - 1);
dummy++;
}
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine(" Time used: {0,9} ticks\n", sw.ElapsedTicks);
sw.Reset();
Console.Write("{0,40}", "AddFirst to LinkedList...");
sw.Start();
for (int i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
{
linkedlist1.AddFirst(rand.Next());
}
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine(" Time used: {0,9} ticks", sw.ElapsedTicks);
sw.Reset();
Console.Write("{0,40}", "RemoveFirst from LinkedList...");
sw.Start();
for (int i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
{
dummy = linkedlist1.First.Value;
linkedlist1.RemoveFirst();
dummy++;
}
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine(" Time used: {0,9} ticks\n", sw.ElapsedTicks);
sw.Reset();
Console.Write("{0,40}", "AddLast to LinkedList...");
sw.Start();
for (int i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
{
linkedlist2.AddLast(rand.Next());
}
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine(" Time used: {0,9} ticks", sw.ElapsedTicks);
sw.Reset();
Console.Write("{0,40}", "RemoveLast from LinkedList...");
sw.Start();
for (int i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
{
dummy = linkedlist2.Last.Value;
linkedlist2.RemoveLast();
dummy++;
}
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine(" Time used: {0,9} ticks\n", sw.ElapsedTicks);
}
}
}
The differences are so dramatic!
As you can see, the performance of Stack<T> and Queue<T> are fast and comparable, that's expected.
For List<T>, using the front and the end has so much differences! And to my surprise, performance of adding/removing from the end is actually comparable to the performance of Stack<T>.
For LinkedList<T>, manipulating with the front is fast (-er than List<T>), but for the end, it is incredibly slow for removing manipulating with the end is too.
So... can any experts account on:
Stack<T> and the end of List<T>,List<T>, andLinkedList<T> is so slow (not applicable as that is a coding error due to the use of Linq's Last(), thanks to CodesInChaos)?I think I know why List<T> doesn't handle the front so well... because List<T>needs to move the whole list back and fro when doing that. Correct me if I am wrong.
P.S. My System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch.Frequency is 2435947, and the program is targeted to .NET 4 Client Profile and compiled with C# 4.0, on Windows 7 Visual Studio 2010.
Concerning 1:
Stack<T>'s and List<T>'s performance being similar isn't surprising. I'd expect both of them to use arrays with a doubling strategy. This leads to amortized constant-time additions.
You can use List<T> everywhere you can use Stack<T>, but it leads to less expressive code.
Concerning 2:
I think I know why
List<T>doesn't handle the front so well... becauseList<T>needs to move the whole list back and fro when doing that.
That's correct. Inserting/removing elements at the beginning is expensive because it moves all elements. Getting or replacing elements at the beginning on the other hand is cheap.
Concerning 3:
Your slow LinkedList<T>.RemoveLast value is a mistake in your benchmarking code.
Removing or getting the last item of a doubly linked list is cheap. In the case of LinkedList<T> that means that RemoveLast and Last are cheap.
But you weren't using the Last property, but LINQ's extension method Last(). On collections that don't implement IList<T> it iterates the whole list, giving it O(n) runtime.