Which is better option to use for dividing an integer number by 2?

Question

Which of the following techniques is the best option for dividing an integer by 2 and why?

Technique 1:

x = x >> 1;

Technique

Answer 1

I would say there are several things to consider.

1. Bitshift should be faster, as no special computation is really needed to shift the bits, however as pointed out, there are potential issues with negative numbers. If you are ensured to have positive numbers, and are looking for speed then I would recommend bitshift.

2. The division operator is very easy for humans to read. So if you are looking for code readability, you could use this. Note that the field of compiler optimization has come a long way, so making code easy to read and understand is good practice.

3. Depending on the underlying hardware, operations may have different speeds. Amdal's law is to make the common case fast. So you may have hardware that can perform different operations faster than others. For example, multiplying by 0.5 may be faster than dividing by 2. (Granted you may need to take the floor of the multiplication if you wish to enforce integer division).

If you are after pure performance, I would recommend creating some tests that could do the operations millions of times. Sample the execution several times (your sample size) to determine which one is statistically best with your OS/Hardware/Compiler/Code.