# Fast Input & Output

Authors: Benjamin Qi, Nathan Chen

Speeding up I/O speeds can make a substantial difference in problems with large inputs.

Generally, input and output speed isn't an issue. However, some platinum tasks have relatively large input files. The USACO Instructions Page briefly mentions some ways of speeding up I/O; let's check that these actually make a difference.

## Fast Input

Focus Problem – read through this problem before continuing!

The largest USACO input file we know of is test case 11 of Robotic Cow Herd (10.3 megabytes). The answer to this test case is $10^{18}$ (with $N=K=10^5$ and all microcontrollers costing $10^8$).

C++

### Method 1: freopen with cin

The slowest method.

973ms

### Method 2: freopen with scanf

Significantly faster.

281ms

258ms

### A Faster Method

If we use FastIO from here then the runtime is further reduced.

91ms

### Significance of ios_base::sync_with_stdio(0); cin.tie(0);

Adding this immediately after main() significantly reduces the runtime of method 1.

254ms

Resources
CFtiming various I/O methods
SO
CPPdocumentation
CPPdocumentation

You may see cin.sync_with_stdio(0); used in place of ios_base::sync_with_stdio(0); but they should have the same effect.

### Warning!

Actually, the first link says that it is supposedly prohibited to use freopen to redirect cin and cout if ios_base::sync_with_stdio(0); cin.tie(0); is included, but it works properly as far as I know.

Java

Keep in mind that a Java program that only reads in $N$ and outputs a number takes 138ms on USACO.

Scanner is probably the easiest way to read input in Java, though it is also extremely slow.

3188ms

A common alternative to reading input for programming contests is BufferedReader, which reads faster from a file than Scanner. BufferedReader reads line-by-line with the .readLine() method, which returns a string. Methods like Integer.parseInt() are used to convert strings into primitives, and they can directly convert a line into a number, like in Integer.parseInt(br.readLine()).

Reading input is more complicated when multiple, space-separated values are placed in a single line. In order to individually read the values in each line, the programmer usually uses the .split() method in String or the .nextToken() in StringTokenizer. Notice that StringTokenizer for splitting strings is slightly faster than .split(). Apparently StreamTokenizer is even faster!

Reading input with BufferedReader and .split():

1209ms

Reading input with BufferedReader and StringTokenizer:

986ms

Reading input with BufferedReader and StreamTokenizer:

569ms

Faster methods of reading input exist too - Even faster than BufferedReader is a custom-written Fast I/O class that uses InputStream. Note that this custom class is similar to the custom-written FastIO.h in the C++ section, as both read input through a byte buffer. Despite the name of the class being "FastIO," it only reads input.

320ms

The most realistic input method to implement in contest is BufferedReader, as it is relatively fast for the amount of code necessary.

Python

Faster than the first C++ method! Significantly less if $P$ does not need to be stored.

853ms

## Fast Output

In general, it may be faster to store the answer all in a single string (C++) or StringBuilder (Java) and outputting it with a single function call. This method avoids the overhead of calling an output method many times, especially if the output is generated in many parts.

C++

The CF blog mentioned above notes that when printing many lines in C++, it may be faster to use the newline character \n in place of endl. Output streams in C++ (such as cout and ofstream) are buffered, meaning that they don't immediately print their output, but store some of it. At some point, the buffer's contents are written (i.e. "flushed") to the output device (e.g the standard output stream or a file). Buffering the output helps with efficiency if accessing the output device (like a file) is slow. Because endl flushes the output, it may be faster to use \n instead and avoid unnecessary flushes.

Java

When printing to the standard output stream in Java, it is faster to use new PrintWriter(System.out) than System.out. The syntax for PrintWriter is equivalent to that of System.out so it should be easy to use. The only difference is that one has to call .flush() or .close() on the PrintWriter at the very end of the program in order to write the output.

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