Question

All,

While going through some of the files in Java API, I noticed many instances where the looping counter is being decremented rather than increment. i.e. in for and while loops in String class. Though this might be trivial, is there any significance for decrementing the counter rather than increment?

Answer 1

I’ve compiled two simple loops with eclipse 3.6 (java 6) and looked at the byte code whether we have some differences. Here’s the code:

for(int i = 2; i >= 0; i--){}
for(int i = 0; i <= 2; i++){}

And this is the bytecode:

// 1st for loop - decrement 2 -> 0
 0 iconst_2
 1 istore_1      // i:=2
 2 goto 8
 5 inc 1 -1      // i+=(-1)
 8 iload_1
 9 ifge 5        // if (i >= 0) goto 5

// 2nd for loop - increment 0 -> 2
12 iconst_0 
13 istore_1      // i:=0
14 goto 20
17 inc 1 1       // i+=1
20 iload_1
21 iconst 2
22 if_icmple 17  // if (i <= 2) goto 17

The increment/decrement operation should make no difference, it’s either +1 or +(-1). The main difference in this typical(!) example is that in the first example we compare to 0 (ifge i), in the second we compare to a value (if_icmple i 2). And the comaprision is done in each iteration. So if there is any (slight) performance gain, I think it’s because it’s less costly to compare with 0 then to compare with other values. So I guess it’s not incrementing/decrementing that makes the difference but the stop criteria.

So if you’re in need to do some micro-optimization on source code level, try to write your loops in a way that you compare with zero, otherwise keep it as readable as possible (and incrementing is much easier to understand):

 for (int i =  0; i <= 2; i++) {}  // readable
 for (int i = -2; i <= 0; i++) {}  // micro-optimized and "faster" (hopefully)

Addition

Yesterday I did a very basic test – just created a 2000×2000 array and populated the cells based on calculations with the cell indices, once counting from 0->1999 for both rows and cells, another time backwards from 1999->0. I wasn’t surprised that both scenarios had a similiar performance (185..210 ms on my machine).

So yes, there is a difference on byte code level (eclipse 3.6) but, hey, we’re in 2010 now, it doesn’t seem to make a significant difference nowadays. So again, and using Stephens words, “don’t waste your time” with this kind of optimization. Keep the code readable and understandable.