is checking a boolean faster than setting a boolean in java?

Question

This:

if (var) {
    var = false;
}

Versus this:

var = false;

Is there a speed difference?

Answer 1

I am late to the game on this one but I wrote this test class to answer a similar question.

package SpeedTests;

import java.text.NumberFormat;
import java.util.Locale;

public class BooleanSpeedTest {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        boolean BoolTest = true;
        long LongLoop = 100000;
        long TrueLoopCount = 0;
        long FalseLoopCount = 0;
        long TimeTotal = 0;

        long startTime;
        long endTime;

        for(int intLoopA = 1; intLoopA < 6; intLoopA++) {
            LongLoop = LongLoop * 10;
            TimeTotal = 0;
            System.out.println("");
            System.out.print(
                    NumberFormat.getNumberInstance(Locale.US).format(LongLoop) + " - ");

            for(int intLoopM = 0; intLoopM < 20; intLoopM++) {
                TrueLoopCount = 0;
                FalseLoopCount = 0;
                startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();

                for(long LoopCount = 0; LoopCount < LongLoop; LoopCount++) {
                    if(!BoolTest) {
                        TrueLoopCount++;
                    }
                    else
                        FalseLoopCount++;   
                }
                endTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
                System.out.print( (endTime - startTime) + "ms ");
                TimeTotal += ((endTime - startTime) );    
            }

            System.out.print(" AVG: " + (TimeTotal/20));
        }
    }
}

My results: Avg time/billion (ms) Notes Time Per Loop

if(BoolTest)                    443                     When False      0.00000443
if(BoolTest)                    443                     When True

if(BoolTest == false)           443                     When False
if(BoolTest == false)           442                     When True

if(!BoolTest)                   438                     When False      
if(!BoolTest)                   441                     When True

(BoolTest ? Var++ : Var--)      435                     When True
(BoolTest ? Var++ : Var--)      435                     When False