Question

I have an algorithm written in Java that I would like to make more efficient. A part that I think could be made more efficient is finding the smallest of 3 numbers. Currently I’m using the Math.min method as below:

double smallest = Math.min(a, Math.min(b, c));

How efficient is this? Would it be more efficient to replace with if statements like below:

double smallest;
if (a <= b && a <= c) {
    smallest = a;
} else if (b <= c && b <= a) {
    smallest = b;
} else {
    smallest = c;
}

Or if any other way is more efficient

I’m wondering if it is worth changing what I’m currently using?

Any speed increase would be greatly helpful

Answer 1

No, it’s seriously not worth changing. The sort of improvements you’re going to get when fiddling with micro-optimisations like this will not be worth it. Even the method call cost will be removed if the min function is called enough.

If you have a problem with your algorithm, your best bet is to look into macro-optimisations (“big picture” stuff like algorithm selection or tuning) – you’ll generally get much better performance improvements there.

And your comment that removing Math.pow gave improvements may well be correct but that’s because it’s a relatively expensive operation. Math.min will not even be close to that in terms of cost.