Kotlin-android-synthetics performance analysis (with ButterKnife)

February 18, 2019

Introduction

After comment that synthetic is no longer recommended practice and some arguments I decided to go deeper into issue with performance of kotlin-android-synthetics by analyzing generated Java and byte code and comparing to other approaches (such as vanilla-*findViewById *and ButterKnife).

Vanilla-findViewById

This is sample Activity we’ll work with throughout the article. Approach with *findViewById *will be our baseline.

Sample consists of:

class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity() {

    private lateinit var textView: TextView

    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main)

        textView = findViewById(R.id.textView)

        update()
    }

    private fun update() {
        textView.text = "Text"
        textView.setTextColor(Color.RED)
        textView.textSize = 14.0f
    }
}

Here is what we’ll get if we try to look at generated java code:

public final class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {
   private TextView textView;
   private HashMap _$_findViewCache;

   protected void onCreate(@Nullable Bundle savedInstanceState) {
      super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
      this.setContentView(-1300009);
      View var10001 = this.findViewById(-1000050);
      Intrinsics.checkExpressionValueIsNotNull(var10001, "findViewById(R.id.textView)");
      this.textView = (TextView)var10001;
      this.update();
   }

   private final void update() {
      TextView var10000 = this.textView;
      if (this.textView == null) {
         Intrinsics.throwUninitializedPropertyAccessException("textView");
      }

      var10000.setText((CharSequence)"Text");
      var10000 = this.textView;
      if (this.textView == null) {
         Intrinsics.throwUninitializedPropertyAccessException("textView");
      }

      var10000.setTextColor(-65536);
      var10000 = this.textView;
      if (this.textView == null) {
         Intrinsics.throwUninitializedPropertyAccessException("textView");
      }

      var10000.setTextSize(14.0F);
   }

   public View _$_findCachedViewById(int var1) {
      if (this._$_findViewCache == null) {
         this._$_findViewCache = new HashMap();
      }

      View var2 = (View)this._$_findViewCache.get(var1);
      if (var2 == null) {
         var2 = this.findViewById(var1);
         this._$_findViewCache.put(var1, var2);
      }

      return var2;
   }

   public void _$_clearFindViewByIdCache() {
      if (this._$_findViewCache != null) {
         this._$_findViewCache.clear();
      }

   }
}

We immediately have a number of questions:

Let’s try to answer these questions one by one.

Code generation issue

I have no exact answer to the question why we have synthetic code generated for class which hasn’t used them. Most likely (as *LayoutContainers *are supported — including Activity, Fragment, View) code is generated for all these classes without checking whether some features of synthetics are actually used in them. Maybe it is just easier to generate to all supported classes than to check where exactly code is needed. Also it might help with incremental builds as after code generation and first build success there is no need to redo it again.

This might look like an overhead from code perspective (and it basically is). Thankfully we have multidex, so number of methods is no longer an issue. For release build *ProGuard *(or R8) will remove unused methods and fields and will do many other optimizations so the problem will gone (eventually there even won’t be update() method in resulting release byte-code as code will be inlined into *onCreate *method)

Lateinit checks

Various *Intrinsic *checks are generated by Kotlin for Java. On Kotlin level it is easy to enforce and check that values are not null/nullable etc., but when it comes to Java there are no guarantees that everything will work well.

As *TextView *property is not final it is possible that between two lines value will be set to null. Intrinsic checks ensure that if some contract is violated exception is thrown as soon as possible.

This again might look as an overhead if we know that we’ll initialize *TextView *in *onCreate *(and we’ll check that value is not null) and that we’ll not try to change property concurrently and that we don’t call update() method before onCreate, so that additional checks are not really required (or at least it could be one). But it is something we know, not the compiler.

One could look at generated Java code and decide to do little trick with .apply function:

private fun update() {
    textView.apply {
        text = "Text"
        setTextColor(Color.*RED*)
        textSize = 14.0f
    }
}

So the resulting Java code will be:

private final void update() {
   TextView var10000 = this.textView;
   if (this.textView == null) {
      Intrinsics.*throwUninitializedPropertyAccessException*("textView");
   }

   TextView var1 = var10000;
   var1.setText((CharSequence)"Text");
   var1.setTextColor(-65536);
   var1.setTextSize(14.0F);
}

So we have only one check and then update all properties on local property. Neat.

Though such optimizations are definitely premature as anyway in release build ProGuard will do better optimization work without making your code look a bit weird.

HashMap/SparseArray

Why HashMap is used instead of SparseArray?

As keys are integers each lookup will trigger boxing of the integer value which will badly impact memory usage and make GC to trigger more often. Seems *SparseArray *is better option because we’ll have primitive integers as keys, why it is not used?

Actually there is a way to generate code with SparseArray. For that it is needed to add to build.gradle:

androidExtensions {
    defaultCacheImplementation = "SPARSE_ARRAY"
}

After that we’ll have SparseArray as cache for views.

Also it is possible to disable cache by using “NONE”, though this option hardly ever useful.

Result

To conclude, evaluation of vanilla approach:

ButterKnife

Let’s look at the same example with ButterKnife:

class ButterKnifeAcivity : AppCompatActivity() {

    @BindView(R.id.textView)
    lateinit var textView: TextView

    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main)

        ButterKnife.bind(this)

        update()
    }

    private fun update() {
        textView.text = "Text"
        textView.setTextColor(Color.RED)
        textView.textSize = 14.0f
    }
}

Generated Java code (synthetics part is removed):

public final class ButterKnifeAcivity extends AppCompatActivity {
   @BindView(-1000050)
   @NotNull
   public TextView textView;

   @NotNull
   public final TextView getTextView() {
      TextView var10000 = this.textView;
      if (this.textView == null) {
         Intrinsics.throwUninitializedPropertyAccessException("textView");
      }

      return var10000;
   }

   public final void setTextView(@NotNull TextView var1) {
      Intrinsics.checkParameterIsNotNull(var1, "<set-?>");
      this.textView = var1;
   }

   protected void onCreate(@Nullable Bundle savedInstanceState) {
      super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
      this.setContentView(-1300009);
      ButterKnife.bind((Activity)this);
      this.update();
   }

   private final void update() {
      TextView var10000 = this.textView;
      if (this.textView == null) {
         Intrinsics.throwUninitializedPropertyAccessException("textView");
      }

      var10000.setText((CharSequence)"Text");
      var10000 = this.textView;
      if (this.textView == null) {
         Intrinsics.throwUninitializedPropertyAccessException("textView");
      }

      var10000.setTextColor(-65536);
      var10000 = this.textView;
      if (this.textView == null) {
         Intrinsics.throwUninitializedPropertyAccessException("textView");
      }

      var10000.setTextSize(14.0F);
   }
}

So, basically everything is the same. The difference is only that additional getter and setter for our *TextView *was generated. It is actually redundant (and will be removed by ProGuard), because *ButterKnife *injector will work directly on field:

public final class ButterKnifeAcivity_ViewBinding implements Unbinder {
  private ButterKnifeAcivity target;

  @UiThread
  public ButterKnifeAcivity_ViewBinding(ButterKnifeAcivity target) {
    this(target, target.getWindow().getDecorView());
  }

  @UiThread
  public ButterKnifeAcivity_ViewBinding(ButterKnifeAcivity target, View source) {
    this.target = target;

    target.textView = Utils.findRequiredViewAsType(source, R.id.textView, "field 'textView'", TextView.class);
  }

  @Override
  public void unbind() {
    ButterKnifeAcivity target = this.target;
    if (target == null) throw new IllegalStateException("Bindings already cleared.");
    this.target = null;

    target.textView = null;
  }
}

So, basically using ButterKnife is similar to vanilla approach. The only difference is that we don’t have to write a lot of *findViewById *calls (though we still need to write one line per property — *Binds *annotation — but it is anyway better as we have actual property and view id near to each other).

There is small downside that *ButterKnife *uses reflection to instantiate *ViewBinding *class. But this is usual trade-off between reflection and code generation.

Result

To conclude, evaluation of *ButterKnife *approach:

Synthetics

Same sample using synthetics:

import kotlinx.android.synthetic.main.activity_main.*

class ExtensionsActivity : AppCompatActivity() {

    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main)

        update()
    }

    private fun update() {
        textView.text = "Text"
        textView.setTextColor(Color.RED)
        textView.textSize = 14.0f
    }
}

Generated Java code:

public final class ExtensionsActivity extends AppCompatActivity {
   private SparseArray _$_findViewCache;

   protected void onCreate(@Nullable Bundle savedInstanceState) {
      super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
      this.setContentView(-1300009);
      this.update();
   }

   private final void update() {
      TextView var10000 = (TextView)this._$_findCachedViewById(id.textView);
      Intrinsics.checkExpressionValueIsNotNull(var10000, "textView");
      var10000.setText((CharSequence)"Text");
      ((TextView)this._$_findCachedViewById(id.textView)).setTextColor(-65536);
      var10000 = (TextView)this._$_findCachedViewById(id.textView);
      Intrinsics.checkExpressionValueIsNotNull(var10000, "textView");
      var10000.setTextSize(14.0F);
   }

   public View _$_findCachedViewById(int var1) {
      if (this._$_findViewCache == null) {
         this._$_findViewCache = new SparseArray();
      }

      View var2 = (View)this._$_findViewCache.get(var1);
      if (var2 == null) {
         var2 = this.findViewById(var1);
         this._$_findViewCache.put(var1, var2);
      }

      return var2;
   }

   public void _$_clearFindViewByIdCache() {
      if (this._$_findViewCache != null) {
         this._$_findViewCache.clear();
      }

   }
}

Here we have version with *SparseArray *to not have, as discussed above, useless autoboxing of integer keys.

The main issue with generated code is that even as we call three methods on same property sequentially, we still have 3 lookups in view cache (yes, *findViewById *will be called just once — at first time, but why to get value from cache all the time?).

Again, we can work-around this by using .apply, as we did in vanilla approach. Then generated code will be like:

private final void update() {
   TextView var1 = (TextView)this._$_findCachedViewById(id.textView);
   var1.setText((CharSequence)"Text");
   var1.setTextColor(-65536);
   var1.setTextSize(14.0F);
}

Looks like we’ve improved our code a bit, as now we’ll call cache only once (and if HashMap is used, then we’ll not have two additional boxing of integer primitive). That actually looks pretty good.

But if we look at generated *dex *byte-code for release build, then it turns out everything is not that easy and straightforward. Below are two listings, first one is byte-code from decompiled release APK of original example, second one for case with “optimization” of .apply.

Original:

.class public final Lcom/krossovochkin/butterknifetest/ExtensionsActivity;
.super Landroidx/appcompat/app/c;


# instance fields
.field private j:Ljava/util/HashMap;


# direct methods
.method public constructor <init>()V
    .registers 1

    invoke-direct {p0}, Landroidx/appcompat/app/c;-><init>()V

    return-void
.end method

.method private a(I)Landroid/view/View;
    .registers 4

    iget-object v0, p0, Lcom/krossovochkin/butterknifetest/ExtensionsActivity;->j:Ljava/util/HashMap;

    if-nez v0, :cond_b

    new-instance v0, Ljava/util/HashMap;

    invoke-direct {v0}, Ljava/util/HashMap;-><init>()V

    iput-object v0, p0, Lcom/krossovochkin/butterknifetest/ExtensionsActivity;->j:Ljava/util/HashMap;

    :cond_b
    iget-object v0, p0, Lcom/krossovochkin/butterknifetest/ExtensionsActivity;->j:Ljava/util/HashMap;

    invoke-static {p1}, Ljava/lang/Integer;->valueOf(I)Ljava/lang/Integer;

    move-result-object v1

    invoke-virtual {v0, v1}, Ljava/util/HashMap;->get(Ljava/lang/Object;)Ljava/lang/Object;

    move-result-object v0

    check-cast v0, Landroid/view/View;

    if-nez v0, :cond_26

    invoke-virtual {p0, p1}, Landroidx/fragment/app/d;->findViewById(I)Landroid/view/View;

    move-result-object v0

    iget-object v1, p0, Lcom/krossovochkin/butterknifetest/ExtensionsActivity;->j:Ljava/util/HashMap;

    invoke-static {p1}, Ljava/lang/Integer;->valueOf(I)Ljava/lang/Integer;

    move-result-object p1

    invoke-virtual {v1, p1, v0}, Ljava/util/HashMap;->put(Ljava/lang/Object;Ljava/lang/Object;)Ljava/lang/Object;

    :cond_26
    return-object v0
.end method


# virtual methods
.method public final onCreate(Landroid/os/Bundle;)V
    .registers 3

    invoke-super {p0, p1}, Landroidx/appcompat/app/c;->onCreate(Landroid/os/Bundle;)V

    const p1, 0x7f0a001e

    invoke-virtual {p0, p1}, Lcom/krossovochkin/butterknifetest/ExtensionsActivity;->setContentView(I)V

    sget p1, Lcom/krossovochkin/butterknifetest/a$a;->textView:I

    invoke-direct {p0, p1}, Lcom/krossovochkin/butterknifetest/ExtensionsActivity;->a(I)Landroid/view/View;

    move-result-object p1

    check-cast p1, Landroid/widget/TextView;

    const-string v0, "textView"

    invoke-static {p1, v0}, La/a/a/a;->a(Ljava/lang/Object;Ljava/lang/String;)V

    const-string v0, "Text"

    check-cast v0, Ljava/lang/CharSequence;

    invoke-virtual {p1, v0}, Landroid/widget/TextView;->setText(Ljava/lang/CharSequence;)V

    sget p1, Lcom/krossovochkin/butterknifetest/a$a;->textView:I

    invoke-direct {p0, p1}, Lcom/krossovochkin/butterknifetest/ExtensionsActivity;->a(I)Landroid/view/View;

    move-result-object p1

    check-cast p1, Landroid/widget/TextView;

    const/high16 v0, -0x10000

    invoke-virtual {p1, v0}, Landroid/widget/TextView;->setTextColor(I)V

    sget p1, Lcom/krossovochkin/butterknifetest/a$a;->textView:I

    invoke-direct {p0, p1}, Lcom/krossovochkin/butterknifetest/ExtensionsActivity;->a(I)Landroid/view/View;

    move-result-object p1

    check-cast p1, Landroid/widget/TextView;

    const-string v0, "textView"

    invoke-static {p1, v0}, La/a/a/a;->a(Ljava/lang/Object;Ljava/lang/String;)V

    const/high16 v0, 0x41600000    # 14.0f

    invoke-virtual {p1, v0}, Landroid/widget/TextView;->setTextSize(F)V

    return-void
.end method

With .apply “optimization”:

.class public final Lcom/krossovochkin/butterknifetest/ExtensionsActivity;
.super Landroidx/appcompat/app/c;


# instance fields
.field private j:Ljava/util/HashMap;


# direct methods
.method public constructor <init>()V
    .registers 1

    invoke-direct {p0}, Landroidx/appcompat/app/c;-><init>()V

    return-void
.end method


# virtual methods
.method public final onCreate(Landroid/os/Bundle;)V
    .registers 4

    invoke-super {p0, p1}, Landroidx/appcompat/app/c;->onCreate(Landroid/os/Bundle;)V

    const p1, 0x7f0a001e

    invoke-virtual {p0, p1}, Lcom/krossovochkin/butterknifetest/ExtensionsActivity;->setContentView(I)V

    sget p1, Lcom/krossovochkin/butterknifetest/a$a;->textView:I

    iget-object v0, p0, Lcom/krossovochkin/butterknifetest/ExtensionsActivity;->j:Ljava/util/HashMap;

    if-nez v0, :cond_16

    new-instance v0, Ljava/util/HashMap;

    invoke-direct {v0}, Ljava/util/HashMap;-><init>()V

    iput-object v0, p0, Lcom/krossovochkin/butterknifetest/ExtensionsActivity;->j:Ljava/util/HashMap;

    :cond_16
    iget-object v0, p0, Lcom/krossovochkin/butterknifetest/ExtensionsActivity;->j:Ljava/util/HashMap;

    invoke-static {p1}, Ljava/lang/Integer;->valueOf(I)Ljava/lang/Integer;

    move-result-object v1

    invoke-virtual {v0, v1}, Ljava/util/HashMap;->get(Ljava/lang/Object;)Ljava/lang/Object;

    move-result-object v0

    check-cast v0, Landroid/view/View;

    if-nez v0, :cond_31

    invoke-virtual {p0, p1}, Landroidx/fragment/app/d;->findViewById(I)Landroid/view/View;

    move-result-object v0

    iget-object v1, p0, Lcom/krossovochkin/butterknifetest/ExtensionsActivity;->j:Ljava/util/HashMap;

    invoke-static {p1}, Ljava/lang/Integer;->valueOf(I)Ljava/lang/Integer;

    move-result-object p1

    invoke-virtual {v1, p1, v0}, Ljava/util/HashMap;->put(Ljava/lang/Object;Ljava/lang/Object;)Ljava/lang/Object;

    :cond_31
    check-cast v0, Landroid/widget/TextView;

    const-string p1, "Text"

    check-cast p1, Ljava/lang/CharSequence;

    invoke-virtual {v0, p1}, Landroid/widget/TextView;->setText(Ljava/lang/CharSequence;)V

    const/high16 p1, -0x10000

    invoke-virtual {v0, p1}, Landroid/widget/TextView;->setTextColor(I)V

    const/high16 p1, 0x41600000    # 14.0f

    invoke-virtual {v0, p1}, Landroid/widget/TextView;->setTextSize(F)V

    return-void
.end method

Again, few questions and observations:

So it seems our apply “optimization” worked and we have smaller byte-code, also avoided additional autoboxing in HashMap and not calling view cache multiple times. Is it enough to recommend using apply “optimization”? I think no. Though there is some impact in the resulting release byte-code it is still matter of optimizations on byte-code level. We usually should not do any code tricks to make byte-code faster. Even if right now solution works, then we need to check over time that this optimization is still working. Otherwise it is better to have clean code.

Result

To conclude, evaluation of Synthetics approach:

Conclusion

So, use or not use?

Actually it depends. I think synthetics is pretty useful tool for common cases when you have simple screens and not using e.g. ‘includes’ and other stuff. If one needs more control, then definitely vanilla approach is better (though has more boilerplate). ButterKnife looks as something between the two and because of that [still] a good tool to work with.

Though next generation of helper tools for working with view bindings I would expect to be built on top of the idea of ButterKnife and just additionally generate properties with Bind annotations automatically.

Synthetics approach seems a bit too broad with a lot of things underneath, with less control. Approach which only looks good for beginners (as you don’t need to think about many things), though dangerous and actually seems to be designed for professionals. Synthetics approach definitely has the worst performance comparing to vanilla or ButterKnife, but I hope that some optimizations will be done in the future so it will become really good approach.

Happy coding!