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javabigdecimal

Which method will be better when multiply 100 with BigDecimal?


Here I have a question when using Java BigDecimal. Which way will be better when I want to multiply 100 for a object of BigDecimal.

  1. multiply 10 twice;
  2. movePointRight(2);
  3. scaleByPowerOfTen(2);
  4. any other way? please show me if there is.

BTW, it will be used for commercial calculation, so I'm considering the precision rather than the speed.


Solution

  • Option 3 is the fastest. Options 1 and 2 are roughly the same (option one being to multiply by ten twice). Multiplying by 100 instead gets up near the speed of option 3.

    Here's my test code:

    import java.math.BigDecimal;
    
    public class TestingStuff {
    
        public static void main(String[] args){
            BigDecimal d2 = new BigDecimal(0); // to load the big decimal class outside the loop
            long start = System.currentTimeMillis();
            for(int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) {
                BigDecimal d = new BigDecimal(99);
                d2 = d.movePointRight(2);
            }
            long end = System.currentTimeMillis();
            System.out.println("movePointRight: " + (end - start));
    
            BigDecimal ten = new BigDecimal(10);
            start = System.currentTimeMillis();
            for(int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) {
                BigDecimal d = new BigDecimal(99);
                d2 = d.multiply(ten).multiply(ten);
            }
            end = System.currentTimeMillis();
            System.out.println("multiply: " + (end - start));
    
            start = System.currentTimeMillis();
            for(int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) {
                BigDecimal d = new BigDecimal(99);
                d2 = d.scaleByPowerOfTen(2);
            }
            end = System.currentTimeMillis();
            System.out.println("scaleByPowerOfTen: " + (end - start));
        }
    
    }
    

    Of course you could just try the various options yourself in your own code. If you can't measure the difference, then why are you optimizing?