Is it better practice to use String.format over string Concatenation in Java?

I'd suggest that it is better practice to use String.format(). The main reason is that String.format() can be more easily localised with text loaded from resource files whereas concatenation can't be localised without producing a new executable with different code for each language.

If you plan on your app being localisable you should also get into the habit of specifying argument positions for your format tokens as well:

"Hello %1$s the time is %2$t"

This can then be localised and have the name and time tokens swapped without requiring a recompile of the executable to account for the different ordering. With argument positions you can also re-use the same argument without passing it into the function twice:

String.format("Hello %1$s, your name is %1$s and the time is %2$t", name, time)

About performance:

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {      
  long start = System.currentTimeMillis();
  for(int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++){
    String s = "Hi " + i + "; Hi to you " + i*2;
  }
  long end = System.currentTimeMillis();
  System.out.println("Concatenation = " + ((end - start)) + " millisecond") ;

  start = System.currentTimeMillis();
  for(int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++){
    String s = String.format("Hi %s; Hi to you %s",i, + i*2);
  }
  end = System.currentTimeMillis();
  System.out.println("Format = " + ((end - start)) + " millisecond");
}

The timing results are as follows:

• Concatenation = 265 millisecond
• Format = 4141 millisecond

Therefore, concatenation is much faster than String.format.

Which one is more readable depends on how your head works.

You got your answer right there.

It's a matter of personal taste.

String concatenation is marginally faster, I suppose, but that should be negligible.

Here's the same test as above with the modification of calling the toString() method on the StringBuilder. The results below show that the StringBuilder approach is just a bit slower than String concatenation using the + operator.

file: StringTest.java

class StringTest {

  public static void main(String[] args) {

    String formatString = "Hi %s; Hi to you %s";

    long start = System.currentTimeMillis();
    for (int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) {
        String s = String.format(formatString, i, +i * 2);
    }

    long end = System.currentTimeMillis();
    System.out.println("Format = " + ((end - start)) + " millisecond");

    start = System.currentTimeMillis();

    for (int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) {
        String s = "Hi " + i + "; Hi to you " + i * 2;
    }

    end = System.currentTimeMillis();

    System.out.println("Concatenation = " + ((end - start)) + " millisecond");

    start = System.currentTimeMillis();

    for (int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) {
        StringBuilder bldString = new StringBuilder("Hi ");
        bldString.append(i).append("Hi to you ").append(i * 2).toString();
    }

    end = System.currentTimeMillis();

    System.out.println("String Builder = " + ((end - start)) + " millisecond");

  }
}

Shell Commands : (compile and run StringTest 5 times)

> javac StringTest.java
> sh -c "for i in \$(seq 1 5); do echo \"Run \${i}\"; java StringTest; done"

Results :

Run 1
Format = 1290 millisecond
Concatenation = 115 millisecond
String Builder = 130 millisecond

Run 2
Format = 1265 millisecond
Concatenation = 114 millisecond
String Builder = 126 millisecond

Run 3
Format = 1303 millisecond
Concatenation = 114 millisecond
String Builder = 127 millisecond

Run 4
Format = 1297 millisecond
Concatenation = 114 millisecond
String Builder = 127 millisecond

Run 5
Format = 1270 millisecond
Concatenation = 114 millisecond
String Builder = 126 millisecond

String.format() is more than just concatenating strings. For example, you can display numbers in a specific locale using String.format().

However, if you don't care about localisation, there is no functional difference. Maybe the concatenation is faster than the other but, in most cases, it will be negligible.

I haven't done any specific benchmarks, but I would think that concatenation may be faster. String.format() creates a new Formatter which, in turn, creates a new StringBuilder (with a size of only 16 chars). That's a fair amount of overhead especially if you are formatting a longer string and StringBuilder keeps having to resize.

However, concatenation is less useful and harder to read. As always, it's worth doing a benchmark on your code to see which is better. The differences may be negligible in server app after your resource bundles, locales, etc are loaded in memory and the code is JITted.

Maybe as a best practice, it would be a good idea to create your own Formatter with a properly sized StringBuilder (Appendable) and Locale and use that if you have a lot of formatting to do.

I think we can go with MessageFormat.format as it should be good at both readability and also performance aspects.

I used the same program which one used by Icaro in his above answer and I enhanced it with appending code for using MessageFormat to explain the performance numbers.

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    long start = System.currentTimeMillis();
    for (int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) {
      String s = "Hi " + i + "; Hi to you " + i * 2;
    }
    long end = System.currentTimeMillis();
    System.out.println("Concatenation = " + ((end - start)) + " millisecond");

    start = System.currentTimeMillis();
    for (int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) {
      String s = String.format("Hi %s; Hi to you %s", i, +i * 2);
    }
    end = System.currentTimeMillis();
    System.out.println("Format = " + ((end - start)) + " millisecond");

    start = System.currentTimeMillis();
    for (int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) {
      String s = MessageFormat.format("Hi %s; Hi to you %s", i, +i * 2);
    }
    end = System.currentTimeMillis();
    System.out.println("MessageFormat = " + ((end - start)) + " millisecond");
  }

Concatenation = 69 millisecond

Format = 1435 millisecond

MessageFormat = 200 millisecond

UPDATES:

As per SonarLint Report, Printf-style format strings should be used correctly (squid:S3457)

Because printf-style format strings are interpreted at runtime, rather than validated by the compiler, they can contain errors that result in the wrong strings being created. This rule statically validates the correlation of printf-style format strings to their arguments when calling the format(...) methods of java.util.Formatter, java.lang.String, java.io.PrintStream, MessageFormat, and java.io.PrintWriter classes and the printf(...) methods of java.io.PrintStream or java.io.PrintWriter classes.

I replace the printf-style with the curly-brackets and I got something interesting results as below.

Concatenation = 69 millisecond
Format = 1107 millisecond
Format:curly-brackets = 416 millisecond
MessageFormat = 215 millisecond
MessageFormat:curly-brackets = 2517 millisecond

My Conclusion:
As I highlighted above, using String.format with curly-brackets should be a good choice to get benefits of good readability and also performance.

Wrong test repeated many times You should use {} no %s .

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
long start = System.currentTimeMillis();
for (int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) {
  String s = "Hi " + i + "; Hi to you " + i * 2;
}
long end = System.currentTimeMillis();
System.out.println("Concatenation = " + ((end - start)) + " millisecond");

start = System.currentTimeMillis();
for (int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) {
  String s = String.format("Hi %s; Hi to you %s", i, +i * 2);
}
end = System.currentTimeMillis();
System.out.println("Wrong use of the message format  = " + ((end - start)) + " millisecond");

start = System.currentTimeMillis();
for (int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) {
  String s = String.format("Hi {0}; Hi to you {1}", i, +i * 2);
}
end = System.currentTimeMillis();
System.out.println("Good use of the message format = " + ((end - start)) + " millisecond");

}

Concatenation = 88 millisecond
Wrong use of the message format  = 1075 millisecond 
Good use of the message format = 376 millisecond

It takes a little time to get used to String.Format, but it's worth it in most cases. In the world of NRA (never repeat anything) it's extremely useful to keep your tokenized messages (logging or user) in a Constant library (I prefer what amounts to a static class) and call them as necessary with String.Format regardless of whether you are localizing or not. Trying to use such a library with a concatenation method is harder to read, troubleshoot, proofread, and manage with any any approach that requires concatenation. Replacement is an option, but I doubt it's performant. After years of use, my biggest problem with String.Format is the length of the call is inconveniently long when I'm passing it into another function (like Msg), but that's easy to get around with a custom function to serve as an alias.