Why is istream/ostream slow

Question

At 50:40 of http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/GoingNative/2013/Writing-Quick-Code-in-Cpp-Quickly Andrei Alexandrescu makes a joke about how not efficient/slow istream is.

Answer 1

Perhaps this can give some idea of what you're dealing with:

#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 

unsigned count1(FILE *infile, char c) { 
    int ch;
    unsigned count = 0;

    while (EOF != (ch=getc(infile)))
        if (ch == c)
            ++count;
    return count;
}

unsigned int count2(FILE *infile, char c) { 
    static char buffer[8192];
    int size;
    unsigned int count = 0;

    while (0 < (size = fread(buffer, 1, sizeof(buffer), infile)))
        for (int i=0; i(infile), 
                    std::istreambuf_iterator(), c);
}

unsigned count4(std::istream &infile, char c) {    
    return std::count(std::istream_iterator(infile), 
                    std::istream_iterator(), c);
}

unsigned int count5(std::istream &infile, char c) {
    static char buffer[8192];
    unsigned int count = 0;

    while (infile.read(buffer, sizeof(buffer)))
        count += std::count(buffer, buffer+infile.gcount(), c);
    count += std::count(buffer, buffer+infile.gcount(), c);
    return count;
}

unsigned count6(std::istream &infile, char c) {
    unsigned int count = 0;
    char ch;

    while (infile >> ch)
        if (ch == c)
            ++count;
    return count;
}

template 
void timer(F f, T &t, std::string const &title) { 
    unsigned count;
    clock_t start = clock();
    count = f(t, 'N');
    clock_t stop = clock();
    std::cout << std::left << std::setw(30) << title << "\tCount: " << count;
    std::cout << "\tTime: " << double(stop-start)/CLOCKS_PER_SEC << "\n";
}

int main() {
    char const *name = "equivs2.txt";

    FILE *infile=fopen(name, "r");

    timer(count1, infile, "ignore");

    rewind(infile);
    timer(count1, infile, "using getc");

    rewind(infile);
    timer(count2, infile, "using fread");

    fclose(infile);

    std::ifstream in2(name);
    timer(count3, in2, "ignore");

    in2.clear();
    in2.seekg(0);
    timer(count3, in2, "using streambuf iterators");

    in2.clear();
    in2.seekg(0);
    timer(count4, in2, "using stream iterators");

    in2.clear();
    in2.seekg(0);
    timer(count5, in2, "using istream::read");

    in2.clear();
    in2.seekg(0);
    timer(count6, in2, "using operator>>");

    return 0;
}

Running this, I get results like this (with MS VC++):

ignore                          Count: 1300     Time: 0.309
using getc                      Count: 1300     Time: 0.308
using fread                     Count: 1300     Time: 0.028
ignore                          Count: 1300     Time: 0.091
using streambuf iterators       Count: 1300     Time: 0.091
using stream iterators          Count: 1300     Time: 0.613
using istream::read             Count: 1300     Time: 0.028
using operator>>                Count: 1300     Time: 0.619

and this (with MinGW):

ignore                          Count: 1300     Time: 0.052
using getc                      Count: 1300     Time: 0.044
using fread                     Count: 1300     Time: 0.036
ignore                          Count: 1300     Time: 0.068
using streambuf iterators       Count: 1300     Time: 0.068
using stream iterators          Count: 1300     Time: 0.131
using istream::read             Count: 1300     Time: 0.037
using operator>>                Count: 1300     Time: 0.121

As we can see in the results, it's not really a matter of iostreams being categorically slow. Rather, a great deal depends on exactly how you use iostreams (and to a lesser extent FILE * as well). There's also a pretty substantial variation just between these to implementations.

Nonetheless, the fastest versions with each (fread and istream::read) are essentially tied. With VC++ getc is quite a bit slower than either istream::read or and istreambuf_iterator.

Bottom line: getting good performance from iostreams requires a little more care than with FILE * -- but it's certainly possible. They also give you more options: convenience when you don't care all that much about speed, and performance directly competitive with the best you can get from C-style I/O, with a little extra work.