Converting an String to bytes

[John Ryan]

Hi everyone,
I have come across an interesting piece of code and just want a confirmation of my understanding of it. If i have a string whicH i want to convert into a series of bytes using UTF-16 encoding i can use the String method getBytes by passing it the name of the encoding set to use.

 
String myString = "abcd";
byte[] aByteArray = myString.getBytes( "UTF-16" );

I have found this piece of code that does the exact same thing.

char[] myChars = pStr.toCharArray();
byte[] myBytes = new byte[myChars.length * 2];
int j = 0;
char c = ' ';
int temp = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < myChars.length; i++)
{
 c = myChars[i];
 temp = (int)c;
 myBytes[j++] = (byte)(temp >> 8);
 myBytes[j++] = (byte)(temp & 0xff);
}
return myBytes;

I am persuming that the second piece of code will run faster than the first and as a result this is why someone can write it. I ran a basic test myself and my guess seems to be confirmed. Can anyone tell me if im correct and also why the second method is faster than the first.
thanks,
John

[Anonymous]

The second method is faster as it does not use the CharToByteConverter abstract factory to create a converter specific to the destination encoding.
Did you find very significant difference in your benchmark when running the JVM in server mode?

[Dave Landers]

Did you try JDK 1.4? The character encoding stuff is much improved in 1.4.

[John Ryan]

Originally posted by Beno�t d'Oncieu:
The second method is faster as it does not use the CharToByteConverter abstract factory to create a converter specific to the destination encoding.
Did you find very significant difference in your benchmark when running the JVM in server mode?

Ok thanks. I didnt get a change to run the JVM in server mode, just a quick test on my desktop where i called both pieces of code 1000 times and checked the time difference

[John Ryan]

Originally posted by Dave Landers:
Did you try JDK 1.4? The character encoding stuff is much improved in 1.4.

Well im stuck on 1.3.1 for this project but i must do some experimentation when i get some time.....