Fastest way to determine if an integer's square root is an integer

Question

I\'m looking for the fastest way to determine if a long value is a perfect square (i.e. its square root is another integer):

1. I\'ve done it the ea

Answer 1

You should get rid of the 2-power part of N right from the start.

2nd Edit The magical expression for m below should be

m = N - (N & (N-1));

and not as written

End of 2nd edit

m = N & (N-1); // the lawest bit of N
N /= m;
byte = N & 0x0F;
if ((m % 2) || (byte !=1 && byte !=9))
  return false;

1st Edit:

Minor improvement:

m = N & (N-1); // the lawest bit of N
N /= m;
if ((m % 2) || (N & 0x07 != 1))
  return false;

End of 1st edit

Now continue as usual. This way, by the time you get to the floating point part, you already got rid of all the numbers whose 2-power part is odd (about half), and then you only consider 1/8 of whats left. I.e. you run the floating point part on 6% of the numbers.