With ARC, what's better: alloc or autorelease initializers?

Question

Is it better (faster & more efficient) to use alloc or autorelease initializers. E.g.:

- (NSString *)hello:(NSString *)name {
          


        

Answer 1

Well, this is something easy to test, and indeed it seems the convenience constructor is "faster" -- unless I made some error in my test code, see below.

Output (Time for 1 Million constructions)

Alloc/init:   842.549473 millisec
Convenience:  741.611933 millisec
Alloc/init:   799.667462 millisec
Convenience:  741.814478 millisec
Alloc/init:   821.125221 millisec
Convenience:  741.376502 millisec
Alloc/init:   811.214693 millisec
Convenience:  795.786457 millisec

---

Script

#import 
#import 

int main (int argc, const char * argv[])
{

    @autoreleasepool {
        NSUInteger runs = 4;

        mach_timebase_info_data_t timebase;
        mach_timebase_info(&timebase);
        double ticksToNanoseconds = (double)timebase.numer / timebase.denom;

        NSString *format = @"Hello %@";
        NSString *world = @"World";

        NSUInteger t = 0;
        for (; t < 2*runs; t++) {
            uint64_t start = mach_absolute_time();
            NSUInteger i = 0;
            for (; i < 1000000; i++) {
                if (0 == t % 2) {       // alloc/init
                    NSString *string = [[NSString alloc] initWithFormat:format, world];
                }
                else {                  // convenience
                    NSString *string = [NSString stringWithFormat:format, world];
                }
            }
            uint64_t run = mach_absolute_time() - start;
            double runTime = run * ticksToNanoseconds;

            if (0 == t % 2) {
                NSLog(@"Alloc/init:   %.6f millisec", runTime / 1000000);
            }
            else {
                NSLog(@"Convenience:  %.6f millisec", runTime / 1000000);
            }
        }
    }
    return 0;
}