Non-synchronized StringBuffer

[Jeff Sturm]

On 23 Nov 2001, Tom Tromey wrote:
> Tonight I hacked up something we've discussed here before: I changed
> gcj so that `+' of Strings uses a gcj-specific unsynchronized copy of
> StringBuffer.

Did you accomplish this without copying the char array?  Perhaps by
constructing an empty String, then overwriting the data/boffset/count
fields?

> I was surprised to discover that in my simple test (several thousand
> String `+' operations), removing synchronization made the code slower.
> I have no explanation for this.  In fact, if somebody else has an
> explanation I'd love to hear it.

If you can send me your patch and test I can run it through iprobe on
alpha/linux.  That might reveal something.

Jeff