Why is Enumerable.Range faster than a direct yield loop?

Question

The code below is checking performance of three different ways to do same solution.

    public static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        // for loop
             


        

Answer 1

A slight difference in the Reflector output (as well as the argument check and extra level of internalisation definitely not relevant here). The essential code is more like:

public static IEnumerable Range(int start, int count) {
    for(int current = 0; current < count; ++current) {
        yield return start + current;
    }
}

That is, instead of another local variable, they apply an extra addition for every yield.

I have tried to benchmark this, but I can't stop enough external processes to get understandable results. I also tried each test twice to ignore the effects of the JIT compiler, but even that has 'interesting' results.

Here's a sample of my results:

Run 0:
time = 4149; result = 405000000450000000
time = 25645; result = 405000000450000000
time = 39229; result = 405000000450000000
time = 29872; result = 405000000450000000

time = 4277; result = 405000000450000000
time = 26878; result = 405000000450000000
time = 26333; result = 405000000450000000
time = 26684; result = 405000000450000000

Run 1:
time = 4063; result = 405000000450000000
time = 22714; result = 405000000450000000
time = 34744; result = 405000000450000000
time = 26954; result = 405000000450000000

time = 4033; result = 405000000450000000
time = 26657; result = 405000000450000000
time = 25855; result = 405000000450000000
time = 25031; result = 405000000450000000

Run 2:
time = 4021; result = 405000000450000000
time = 21815; result = 405000000450000000
time = 34304; result = 405000000450000000
time = 32040; result = 405000000450000000

time = 3993; result = 405000000450000000
time = 24779; result = 405000000450000000
time = 29275; result = 405000000450000000
time = 32254; result = 405000000450000000

and the code

using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Diagnostics;

namespace RangeTests
{
  class TestRange
  {
    public static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      for(int l = 1; l <= 2; ++l)
      {
        const int N = 900000000;
        System.GC.Collect(2);
        // for loop
        {
            Stopwatch sw = Stopwatch.StartNew();

            long accumulator = 0;
            for (int i = 1; i <= N; ++i)
            {
                accumulator += i;
            }

            sw.Stop();

            Console.WriteLine("time = {0}; result = {1}", sw.ElapsedMilliseconds, accumulator);
        }
        System.GC.Collect(2);

        //Enumerable.Range
        {
            Stopwatch sw = Stopwatch.StartNew();

            var ret = Enumerable.Range(1, N).Aggregate(0, (long accumulator,int n) => accumulator + n);

            sw.Stop();
            Console.WriteLine("time = {0}; result = {1}", sw.ElapsedMilliseconds, ret);
        }
        System.GC.Collect(2);

        //self-made IEnumerable
        {
            Stopwatch sw = Stopwatch.StartNew();

            var ret = GetIntRange(1, N).Aggregate(0, (long accumulator,int n) => accumulator + n);

            sw.Stop();
            Console.WriteLine("time = {0}; result = {1}", sw.ElapsedMilliseconds, ret);
        }
        System.GC.Collect(2);

        //self-made adjusted IEnumerable
        {
            Stopwatch sw = Stopwatch.StartNew();

            var ret = GetRange(1, N).Aggregate(0, (long accumulator,int n) => accumulator + n);

            sw.Stop();
            Console.WriteLine("time = {0}; result = {1}", sw.ElapsedMilliseconds, ret);
        }
        System.GC.Collect(2);
        Console.WriteLine();
    } }

    private static IEnumerable GetIntRange(int start, int count)
    {
        int end = start + count;

        for (int i = start; i < end; ++i)
        {
            yield return i;
        }
    }

    private static IEnumerable GetRange(int start, int count)
    {
        for (int i = 0; i < count; ++i)
        {
            yield return start + i;
        }
    }
} }

compiled with

csc.exe -optimize+ -debug- RangeTests.cs