NullCheckingForGet.java

/*
 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
 * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
 * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
 * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
 * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */
package org.apache.arrow.vector;

/**
 * Configuration class to determine if null checking should be enabled or disabled for the "get"
 * methods. For example, the get method of class org.apache.arrow.vector.Float8Vector first checks
 * if the value at the given index is null, before retrieving the value. This configuration will
 * turn on and off such checks.
 *
 * <p>Null checking is on by default. You can disable it by setting either the system property or
 * the environmental variable to "false". The system property is named
 * "arrow.enable_null_check_for_get" and the environmental variable is named
 * "ARROW_ENABLE_NULL_CHECK_FOR_GET". When both the system property and the environmental variable
 * are set, the system property takes precedence.
 *
 * <p>Disabling null-checking in the "get" methods may lead to performance improvements. For
 * example, suppose we have the following micro-benchmark:
 *
 * <p>
 *
 * <pre>{@code
 * Float8Vector vector = ...
 *
 * public void test() {
 *   sum = 0;
 *   for (int i = 0; i < 1024; i++) {
 *     vector.set(i, i + 10.0);
 *     safeSum += vector.get(i);
 *   }
 * }
 *
 * }</pre>
 *
 * <p>Performance evaluations of the micro-benchmark with the JMH framework reveal that, disabling
 * null checking has the following effects: 1. The amounts of byte code and assembly code generated
 * by JIT are both smaller. 2. The performance improves by about 30% (2.819 �� 0.005 us/op vs. 4.069
 * �� 0.004 us/op).
 *
 * <p>Therefore, for scenarios where the user can be sure that the null-checking is unnecessary, it
 * is beneficial to disable it with this configuration.
 */
public class NullCheckingForGet {

  /** The flag to indicate if null checking is enabled for "get" methods. */
  public static final boolean NULL_CHECKING_ENABLED;

  static {
    String envProperty = System.getenv("ARROW_ENABLE_NULL_CHECK_FOR_GET");
    String sysProperty = System.getProperty("arrow.enable_null_check_for_get");

    // The system property has a higher priority than the environmental variable.
    String flagValue = sysProperty;
    if (flagValue == null) {
      flagValue = envProperty;
    }

    // The flag is set to false only if the system property/environmental
    // variable is explicitly set to "false".
    NULL_CHECKING_ENABLED = !"false".equals(flagValue);
  }

  private NullCheckingForGet() {}
}