Why is intarray's push `+` so much faster than array-to-element concatenation `||`?

Question

When it comes to using arrays of ints, I always default to using intarray. But, now I'm wondering why is the default concatenation so much slower.

This answer probably requires some understanding of internals. Internally, intarray's calls intarray_push_elem, and || calls array_append

Sample Data

CREATE EXTENSION intarray;
CREATE TABLE foo AS
  SELECT ARRAY[x::int] AS bar
  FROM generate_series(1,1e7)
    AS gs(x);

Same result

SELECT ARRAY[1] + 42 = ARRAY[1] || 42;
 ?column? 
----------
 t
(1 row)

With ||

EXPLAIN ANALYZE
  SELECT bar || 42 FROM foo;

                                                    QUERY PLAN                                                     
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Seq Scan on foo  (cost=0.00..198528.55 rows=9999884 width=25) (actual time=0.029..5193.752 rows=10000000 loops=1)
 Planning time: 0.051 ms
 Execution time: 5679.489 ms
(3 rows)

With + from intarray extension

EXPLAIN ANALYZE
  SELECT bar + 42 FROM foo;
                                                    QUERY PLAN                                                     
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Seq Scan on foo  (cost=0.00..198528.55 rows=9999884 width=25) (actual time=0.026..2066.786 rows=10000000 loops=1)
 Planning time: 0.052 ms
 Execution time: 2388.462 ms
(3 rows)

Routinely intarray's + is faster than ||. Why is || so slow?

Answer 1

It seems as if || is doing a lot more for multidimensional arrays.

For instance with || catching the following case

SELECT ARRAY[ARRAY[1]] || 5;
ERROR:  argument must be empty or one-dimensional array

Whereas, with + the array is flattened..

SELECT ARRAY[ARRAY[1]] + 5;
 ?column? 
----------
 {1,5}
(1 row)

In addition it seems intarray does not handle nulls.

SELECT ARRAY[null]::int[] + 5;
ERROR:  array must not contain nulls

It also seems || uses PG_RETURN_DATUM instead of passing by reference which seems to be what + uses with PG_RETURN_POINTER.