I have an app that needs to build one long string from a set of short
ones,i.e:

var
  strLong: String;
  i:       Integer;
begin
  strLong := '';
  for i := 0 to aObject.Items.Count-1
  do strLong := strLong+aObject.Items[i];
end;

When the string gets around 6K bytes the concatenations start to slow
down on my machine, around 12K, it really crawls, i.e. one concatenation
per second with 100% processor usage.

It seems like the memory manager is severely thrashing trying to expand
storage for the long string.

Incidently, I get the same bottleneck if I use a PChar and GetMem for
the full size before concatenating!Any help would be much appreciated!
Thanks
Peter

Hi Peter -

Next, following the PChar route, instead of concatenating (using StrCat I
assume), you should just keep a pointer to the end of the big string, copy
the new string data at that point, then advance the end-of-string pointer
by that length again. If you need an example of this, I can work one up.

You could also emulate this behavior yourself using a big array of char,
and simply Move() in each substring to the next available point. Top it off
with a Null byte or a CR/LF pair, add a dash of nutmeg, stir and enjoy!

JRS:  In article <6ivdfd$d1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com> of Fri, 8 May 1998
16:56:13 in comp.lang.pascal.borland, pko...@pfksystems.com wrote:

You need to keep track of the end of StrLong (if it is PChar), copy
character-by-character the new chars to the tail of the old string, and
update the length (if it is String).  You can copy quickest (I hope)
with Move.  Del_timr does not do Concat (</g>), but that's a subset of
Inject.  Del_Time uses strings, not Pchars, but the principle applies.

How you get a string of 6 kBytes in comp.lang.pascal.borland, ... !!!

HTH.