Which is faster : if (bool) or if(int)?

Question

Which value is better to use? Boolean true or Integer 1?

The above topic made me do some experiments with bool and in

Answer 1

Yeah, the discussion's fun. But just test it:

Test code:

#include 
#include 

int testi(int);
int testb(bool);
int main (int argc, char* argv[]){
  bool valb;
  int  vali;
  int loops;
  if( argc < 2 ){
    return 2;
  }
  valb = (0 != (strcmp(argv[1], "0")));
  vali = strcmp(argv[1], "0");
  printf("Arg1: %s\n", argv[1]);
  printf("BArg1: %i\n", valb ? 1 : 0);
  printf("IArg1: %i\n", vali);
  for(loops=30000000; loops>0; loops--){
    //printf("%i: %i\n", loops, testb(valb=!valb));
    printf("%i: %i\n", loops, testi(vali=!vali));
  }
  return valb;
}

int testi(int val){
  if( val ){
    return 1;
  }
  return 0;
}
int testb(bool val){
  if( val ){
    return 1;
  }
  return 0;
}

Compiled on a 64-bit Ubuntu 10.10 laptop with: g++ -O3 -o /tmp/test_i /tmp/test_i.cpp

Integer-based comparison:

sauer@trogdor:/tmp$ time /tmp/test_i 1 > /dev/null

real    0m8.203s
user    0m8.170s
sys 0m0.010s
sauer@trogdor:/tmp$ time /tmp/test_i 1 > /dev/null

real    0m8.056s
user    0m8.020s
sys 0m0.000s
sauer@trogdor:/tmp$ time /tmp/test_i 1 > /dev/null

real    0m8.116s
user    0m8.100s
sys 0m0.000s

Boolean test / print uncommented (and integer commented):

sauer@trogdor:/tmp$ time /tmp/test_i 1 > /dev/null

real    0m8.254s
user    0m8.240s
sys 0m0.000s
sauer@trogdor:/tmp$ time /tmp/test_i 1 > /dev/null

real    0m8.028s
user    0m8.000s
sys 0m0.010s
sauer@trogdor:/tmp$ time /tmp/test_i 1 > /dev/null

real    0m7.981s
user    0m7.900s
sys 0m0.050s

They're the same with 1 assignment and 2 comparisons each loop over 30 million loops. Find something else to optimize. For example, don't use strcmp unnecessarily. ;)