Defining Local Variable const vs Class const

Question

If I am using a constant that is needed only in a method, is it best to declare the const within the method scope, or in the class scope? Is there better pe

Answer 1

Here is a small benchmark I did to evaluate the scenarios;

The code:

using System;
using System.Diagnostics;

namespace TestVariableScopePerformance
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            TestClass tc = new TestClass();
            Stopwatch sw = new Stopwatch();

            sw.Start();
            tc.MethodGlobal();
            sw.Stop();

            Console.WriteLine("Elapsed for MethodGlobal = {0} Minutes {1} Seconds {2} MilliSeconds", sw.Elapsed.Minutes, sw.Elapsed.Seconds, sw.Elapsed.Milliseconds);
            sw.Reset();

            sw.Start();
            tc.MethodLocal();
            sw.Stop();

            Console.WriteLine("Elapsed for MethodLocal = {0} Minutes {1} Seconds {2} MilliSeconds", sw.Elapsed.Minutes, sw.Elapsed.Seconds, sw.Elapsed.Milliseconds);

            Console.WriteLine("Press any key to continue...");
            Console.ReadKey();
        }


    }

    class TestClass
    {
        const int Const1 = 100;

        internal void MethodGlobal()
        {
            double temp = 0d;
            for (int i = 0; i < int.MaxValue; i++)
            {
                temp = (i * Const1);
            }
        }

        internal void MethodLocal()
        {
            const int Const2 = 100;
            double temp = 0d;
            for (int i = 0; i < int.MaxValue; i++)
            {
                temp = (i * Const2);
            }
        }
    }
}

The results of 3 iterations:

Elapsed for MethodGlobal = 0 Minutes 1 Seconds 285 MilliSeconds
Elapsed for MethodLocal = 0 Minutes 1 Seconds 1 MilliSeconds
Press any key to continue...

Elapsed for MethodGlobal = 0 Minutes 1 Seconds 39 MilliSeconds
Elapsed for MethodLocal = 0 Minutes 1 Seconds 274 MilliSeconds
Press any key to continue...

Elapsed for MethodGlobal = 0 Minutes 1 Seconds 305 MilliSeconds
Elapsed for MethodLocal = 0 Minutes 1 Seconds 31 MilliSeconds
Press any key to continue...

I guess the observation concludes @jnm2 answer.

Do run the same code from your system and let us know the result.