Thread: Simple question: Does comparison use more processing power, or addition assignment operator?

Let me make it more specific!

im gunna run through these likes of code a few hundred thousand times in my program, and im currently studying for code optimization.

I'll show one for an example.

I can either do:

Code:

if[key=='w'){
keystrokes[key]=true;
}

or i can do:

Code:

keystrokes[key]=true;

which takes less processing power?

EDIT: oops the thread name is wrong, not addition assignment, but just assignment.

Studying code optimization? As in an actual class, or just self study?

Anyway, to answer your question, the second is obviously faster if key == 'w' and the first is almost certainly faster if key != 'w'. The actual differences depend on how often key == 'w' and what type keystrokes is. It also somewhat depends on where in your code this occurs.

But either way, this is a micro-optimization and is almost certainly going to have almost no effect on performance. If this is self-study, you're kind-of headed in the wrong direction.

i was recently thought about linked list vs vector's code optimization. i was wondering about assignment operators half-way

thx for the reply!

The STL is already highly optimized and tuned in ways that allow the compiler to make further optimizations. For common tasks, it would be very hard to do better performance-wise. That said, knowing which STL container to use when is an optimization worth knowing. And there are some tasks where more specialized data structures can outperform any of the STL classes.