Question

Which of the 2 is better from a processing or optimizing point of view?

I feel Option 1 is more readable, but I’ve been told Option 2 is more efficient. Is that so?

if (value != null) {
    if (value.equalsIgnoreCase(ApplicationConstants.A)) {
    } else if (value.equalsIgnoreCase(ApplicationConstants.B)) {
    }
}

Option 2:

if ((value != null) && (value.equalsIgnoreCase(ApplicationConstants.A))) {

} else if ((value != null) && (value.equalsIgnoreCase(ApplicationConstants.B))) {

}

Answer 1

There’s nothing here to care about performance wise, write your code so it’s as readable as you can make it.

When performance testing later highlights areas that need to be optimized then and only then optimize only the places that need it.

To make it more readable you can invert your tests to get rid of the null check:

if (ApplicationConstants.A.equalsIgnoreCase(value)) {
} else if (ApplicationConstants.B.equalsIgnoreCase(value)) {
}