Java Reflection Performance

Question

Does creating an object using reflection rather than calling the class constructor result in any significant performance differences?

Answer 1

I think it depends on how light/heavy the target method is. if the target method is very light(e.g. getter/setter), It could be 1 ~ 3 times slower. if the target method takes about 1 millisecond or above, then the performance will be very close. here is the test I did with Java 8 and reflectasm :

public class ReflectionTest extends TestCase {    
    @Test
    public void test_perf() {
        Profiler.run(3, 100000, 3, "m_01 by refelct", () -> Reflection.on(X.class)._new().invoke("m_01")).printResult();    
        Profiler.run(3, 100000, 3, "m_01 direct call", () -> new X().m_01()).printResult();    
        Profiler.run(3, 100000, 3, "m_02 by refelct", () -> Reflection.on(X.class)._new().invoke("m_02")).printResult();    
        Profiler.run(3, 100000, 3, "m_02 direct call", () -> new X().m_02()).printResult();    
        Profiler.run(3, 100000, 3, "m_11 by refelct", () -> Reflection.on(X.class)._new().invoke("m_11")).printResult();    
        Profiler.run(3, 100000, 3, "m_11 direct call", () -> X.m_11()).printResult();    
        Profiler.run(3, 100000, 3, "m_12 by refelct", () -> Reflection.on(X.class)._new().invoke("m_12")).printResult();    
        Profiler.run(3, 100000, 3, "m_12 direct call", () -> X.m_12()).printResult();
    }

    public static class X {
        public long m_01() {
            return m_11();
        }    
        public long m_02() {
            return m_12();
        }    
        public static long m_11() {
            long sum = IntStream.range(0, 10).sum();
            assertEquals(45, sum);
            return sum;
        }    
        public static long m_12() {
            long sum = IntStream.range(0, 10000).sum();
            assertEquals(49995000, sum);
            return sum;
        }
    }
}

The complete test code is available at GitHub:ReflectionTest.java