is it good or bad to reuse the variables?

Question

I wonder if it is good or bad (or does not matter) if I reuse the variable names as much as possible? for example

int main(void){
  //...
  int x=0;

  //..
         


        

Answer 1

Bad. For simple types like ints, passed by value, the compiler will be able to figure out when they are unneeded and reuse the space.

For example, I compiled the following C++ code in Visual Studio 2010 using 32-bit Release mode:

for (int i = 0; i < 4; ++i)
{
    printf("%d\n", i);
}

for (int j = 0; j < 4; ++j)
{
    printf("%d\n", j);
}

and got the following assembler output:

; 5    :    for (int i = 0; i < 4; ++i)

    mov edi, DWORD PTR __imp__printf
    xor esi, esi
    npad    6
$LL6@main:

; 6    :    {
; 7    :        printf("%d\n", i);

    push    esi
    push    OFFSET ??_C@_03PMGGPEJJ@?$CFd?6?$AA@
    call    edi
    inc esi
    add esp, 8
    cmp esi, 4
    jl  SHORT $LL6@main

; 8    :    }
; 9    : 
; 10   :    for (int j = 0; j < 4; ++j)

    xor esi, esi
$LL3@main:

; 11   :    {
; 12   :        printf("%d\n", j);

    push    esi
    push    OFFSET ??_C@_03PMGGPEJJ@?$CFd?6?$AA@
    call    edi
    inc esi
    add esp, 8
    cmp esi, 4
    jl  SHORT $LL3@main

; 13   :    }

You can see that the compiler is using the esi register for both i and j.