Question

While developing ASP.NET applications I often need to parse a boolean value given in string form, e.g. from a query string like ?visible=true

I found two solutions to implement the parsing:

bool Visible
{
    get
    {
        bool b;
        return Boolean.TryParse(this.Request["visible"], out b) && b;
    }
}

or

bool Visible
{
    get
    {
        bool b;
        return Boolean.TryParse(this.Request["visible"], out b) ? b : false;
    }
}

How do you think which way is preferred? And probably faster?

P.S. It’s not a micro-opt, I just want to get know

P.P.S. I’m not familiar with IL so decided to ask here

Answer 1

Don’t micro optimize, make it readable.

I think this is more readable:

bool visible;
Boolean.TryParse(this.Request["visible"], out visible);
return visible;

readable variable names usually helps 😉 And this implementation actually yields fewer op codes compared to the other two, and I assume it will perform in fewer cycles, being faster than both your attempts.

So, it’s not only more readable imo, but also faster since it skips the if statement. The other two have equal op codes, just switched the logic around on the checking.

[Edit – compiled with Release flags – shorter IL]

If you look at the three following implementations:

public bool Visible1
{
    get 
    {
        bool b;
        return Boolean.TryParse(HttpContext.Current.Request["visible"], out b) && b;
    }
}

public bool Visible2
{
    get
    {
        bool b;
        return Boolean.TryParse(HttpContext.Current.Request["visible"], out b) ? b : false;
    }
}

public bool Visible3
{
    get
    {
        bool b;
        Boolean.TryParse(HttpContext.Current.Request["visible"], out b);
        return b;
    }
}

will yield the following IL code:

.method public hidebysig specialname instance bool get_Visible1() cil managed
{
    .maxstack 2
    .locals init (
    [0] bool b)
    L_0000: call class [System.Web]System.Web.HttpContext [System.Web]System.Web.HttpContext::get_Current()
    L_0005: callvirt instance class [System.Web]System.Web.HttpRequest [System.Web]System.Web.HttpContext::get_Request()
    L_000a: ldstr "visible"
    L_000f: callvirt instance string [System.Web]System.Web.HttpRequest::get_Item(string)
    L_0014: ldloca.s b
    L_0016: call bool [mscorlib]System.Boolean::TryParse(string, bool&)
    L_001b: brfalse.s L_001f
    L_001d: ldloc.0 
    L_001e: ret 
    L_001f: ldc.i4.0 
    L_0020: ret 
}

.method public hidebysig specialname instance bool get_Visible2() cil managed
{
    .maxstack 2
    .locals init (
    [0] bool b)
    L_0000: call class [System.Web]System.Web.HttpContext [System.Web]System.Web.HttpContext::get_Current()
    L_0005: callvirt instance class [System.Web]System.Web.HttpRequest [System.Web]System.Web.HttpContext::get_Request()
    L_000a: ldstr "visible"
    L_000f: callvirt instance string [System.Web]System.Web.HttpRequest::get_Item(string)
    L_0014: ldloca.s b
    L_0016: call bool [mscorlib]System.Boolean::TryParse(string, bool&)
    L_001b: brtrue.s L_001f
    L_001d: ldc.i4.0 
    L_001e: ret 
    L_001f: ldloc.0 
    L_0020: ret 
}

.method public hidebysig specialname instance bool get_Visible3() cil managed
{
    .maxstack 2
    .locals init (
    [0] bool b)
    L_0000: call class [System.Web]System.Web.HttpContext [System.Web]System.Web.HttpContext::get_Current()
    L_0005: callvirt instance class [System.Web]System.Web.HttpRequest [System.Web]System.Web.HttpContext::get_Request()
    L_000a: ldstr "visible"
    L_000f: callvirt instance string [System.Web]System.Web.HttpRequest::get_Item(string)
    L_0014: ldloca.s b
    L_0016: call bool [mscorlib]System.Boolean::TryParse(string, bool&)
    L_001b: pop 
    L_001c: ldloc.0 
    L_001d: ret 
}