Fastest way to replace multiple strings in a huge string

Question

I m looking for the fastest way to replace multiple (~500) substrings of a big (~1mb) string. Whatever I have tried it seems that String.Replace is the fastest way of doing

Answer 1

Using unsafe and compiled as x64

result:

Implementation       | Exec   | GC
#1 Simple            | 4706ms |  0ms
#2 Simple parallel   | 2265ms |  0ms
#3 ParallelSubstring |  800ms | 21ms
#4 Fredou unsafe     |  432ms | 15ms

take the code of Erti-Chris Eelmaa and replace my previous one with this.

I don't think I will do another iteration but i did learn a few thing with unsafe which is a good thing :-)

    private unsafe static void FredouImplementation(string input, int inputLength, string replace, string[] replaceBy)
    {
        var indexes = new List();

        //input = "ABCDABCABCDABCABCDABCABCDABCD";
        //inputLength = input.Length;
        //replaceBy = new string[] { "AA", "BB", "CC", "DD", "EE" };

        //my own string.indexof to save a few ms
        int len = inputLength;

        fixed (char* i = input, r = replace)
        {
            int replaceValAsInt = *((int*)r);

            while (--len > -1)
            {
                if (replaceValAsInt == *((int*)&i[len]))
                {
                    indexes.Add(len--);
                }
            }                
        }

        var idx = indexes.ToArray();
        len = indexes.Count;

        Parallel.For(0, replaceBy.Length, l =>
            Process(input, inputLength, replaceBy[l], idx, len)
        );
    }

    private unsafe static void Process(string input, int len, string replaceBy, int[] idx, int idxLen)
    {
        var output = new char[len];

        fixed (char* o = output, i = input, r = replaceBy)
        {
            int replaceByValAsInt = *((int*)r);

            //direct copy, simulate string.copy
            while (--len > -1)
            {
                o[len] = i[len];
            }

            while (--idxLen > -1)
            {
                ((int*)&o[idx[idxLen]])[0] = replaceByValAsInt;
            }
        }

        //Console.WriteLine(output);
    }