Event Handler performance

Question

I have a performance problem. I create 100 new buttons and I want to assign an Click Event Handler. I execute this code for about 100 times:

Buttons[i].Button.Cl         


        

Answer 1

The code ".Click += ..." is transformed into ".add_Click( ... )". The "add_Click" method can have some logic checks.

You can little-bit speed up with no recreation of delegate:

EventHandler clickHandler = this.Button_Click;
foreach(Button btn in GetButtons()) {
   btn.Click += clicHandler;
}

EDIT:

Are you sure, the bottleneck is the attaching the handlers? I tried the for loop (100 loops) with attaching the eventhandler to Click event and I get this results:

/* only creation the button and attaching the handler */
button1_Click - A: 0 ms
button1_Click - B: 0 ms
button1_Click - A: 1 ms
button1_Click - B: 0 ms
button1_Click - A: 0 ms
button1_Click - B: 0 ms

/* creation the button, attaching the handler and add to the panel */
button2_Click - A: 223 ms
button2_Click - B: 202 ms
button2_Click - A: 208 ms
button2_Click - B: 201 ms
button2_Click - A: 204 ms
button2_Click - B: 230 ms

The source code:

    void button_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
        // do nothing
    }

    private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
        const int MAX_BUTTONS = 100;
        var stopWatch = new System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch();
        stopWatch.Start();
        for (int i = 0; i < MAX_BUTTONS; i++) {
            var button = new Button();
            button.Click += new EventHandler(button_Click);
        }
        stopWatch.Stop();
        System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(string.Format("button1_Click - A: {0} ms", stopWatch.ElapsedMilliseconds));

        stopWatch.Reset();
        stopWatch.Start();
        EventHandler clickHandler = this.button_Click;
        for (int i = 0; i < MAX_BUTTONS; i++) {
            var button = new Button();
            button.Click += clickHandler;
        }
        stopWatch.Stop();
        System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(string.Format("button1_Click - B: {0} ms", stopWatch.ElapsedMilliseconds));
    }

    private void button2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
        const int MAX_BUTTONS = 100;

        var stopWatch = new System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch();

        this.panel1.Controls.Clear();
        stopWatch.Start();
        for (int i = 0; i < MAX_BUTTONS; i++) {
            var button = new Button();
            button.Click += new EventHandler(button_Click);
            this.panel1.Controls.Add(button);
        }
        stopWatch.Stop();
        System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(string.Format("button2_Click - A: {0} ms", stopWatch.ElapsedMilliseconds));

        stopWatch.Reset();

        this.panel1.Controls.Clear();
        stopWatch.Start();
        EventHandler clickHandler = this.button_Click;
        for (int i = 0; i < MAX_BUTTONS; i++) {
            var button = new Button();
            button.Click += clickHandler;
            this.panel1.Controls.Add(button);
        }
        stopWatch.Stop();
        System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(string.Format("button2_Click - B: {0} ms", stopWatch.ElapsedMilliseconds));
    }

EDIT 2: I tried compare time spent with attaching Click handler vs. attaching MouseUp handler. It does not seems, the attaching MouseUp event is faster than Click event.

I think the problem will be somewhere else. Don't GC collect during your loop? Or don't you do something else there?

Results:

button1_Click - Click_A: 6 ms
button1_Click - Click_B: 6 ms
button1_Click - MouseUp_A: 15 ms
button1_Click - MousUp_B: 7 ms

button1_Click - Click_A: 16 ms
button1_Click - Click_B: 7 ms
button1_Click - MouseUp_A: 16 ms
button1_Click - MousUp_B: 10 ms

button1_Click - Click_A: 14 ms
button1_Click - Click_B: 19 ms
button1_Click - MouseUp_A: 27 ms
button1_Click - MousUp_B: 5 ms

button1_Click - Click_A: 17 ms
button1_Click - Click_B: 17 ms
button1_Click - MouseUp_A: 24 ms
button1_Click - MousUp_B: 8 ms

button1_Click - Click_A: 6 ms
button1_Click - Click_B: 5 ms
button1_Click - MouseUp_A: 14 ms
button1_Click - MousUp_B: 7 ms

button1_Click - Click_A: 14 ms
button1_Click - Click_B: 9 ms
button1_Click - MouseUp_A: 15 ms
button1_Click - MousUp_B: 7 ms

Code:

    private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
        const int MAX_BUTTONS = 1000;
        var stopWatch = new System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch();

        stopWatch.Start();
        for (int i = 0; i < MAX_BUTTONS; i++) {
            var button = new Button();
            button.Click += new EventHandler(button_Click);
        }
        stopWatch.Stop();
        System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(string.Format("button1_Click - Click_A: {0} ms", stopWatch.ElapsedMilliseconds));

        stopWatch.Reset();
        stopWatch.Start();
        EventHandler clickHandler = this.button_Click;
        for (int i = 0; i < MAX_BUTTONS; i++) {
            var button = new Button();
            button.Click += clickHandler;
        }
        stopWatch.Stop();
        System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(string.Format("button1_Click - Click_B: {0} ms", stopWatch.ElapsedMilliseconds));

        stopWatch.Start();
        for (int i = 0; i < MAX_BUTTONS; i++) {
            var button = new Button();
            button.MouseUp += new MouseEventHandler(button_MouseUp);
        }
        stopWatch.Stop();
        System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(string.Format("button1_Click - MouseUp_A: {0} ms", stopWatch.ElapsedMilliseconds));

        stopWatch.Reset();
        stopWatch.Start();
        MouseEventHandler mouseUpHandler = this.button_MouseUp;
        for (int i = 0; i < MAX_BUTTONS; i++) {
            var button = new Button();
            button.MouseUp += mouseUpHandler;
        }
        stopWatch.Stop();
        System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(string.Format("button1_Click - MousUp_B: {0} ms", stopWatch.ElapsedMilliseconds));
    }

EDIT : The body of add_Click method (= Click += ...) is rough:

public void add_Click(EventHandler value) {
   this.Events.AddHandler(ClickEventIdentifier, value);
}

The MouseUp events will looks similar. At least both events using Events property for holding lists of delegates for events.

But if I tried several things I can not get the problems with the events as you wrote :(. Can you reproduce same behaviour on another computers?