String vs. StringBuilder

Question

I understand the difference between String and StringBuilder (StringBuilder being mutable) but is there a large performance difference

Answer 1

StringBuilder is preferable IF you are doing multiple loops, or forks in your code pass... however, for PURE performance, if you can get away with a SINGLE string declaration, then that is much more performant.

For example:

string myString = "Some stuff" + var1 + " more stuff"
                  + var2 + " other stuff" .... etc... etc...;

is more performant than

StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
sb.Append("Some Stuff");
sb.Append(var1);
sb.Append(" more stuff");
sb.Append(var2);
sb.Append("other stuff");
// etc.. etc.. etc..

In this case, StringBuild could be considered more maintainable, but is not more performant than the single string declaration.

9 times out of 10 though... use the string builder.

On a side note: string + var is also more performant that the string.Format approach (generally) that uses a StringBuilder internally (when in doubt... check reflector!)