16

Why in solidity, i++ & ++i works the same but one costs a little bit more gas?

Take a look at this contract:

contract foobar {
    
    uint[] public arr = [1,2,3,4,5];

    function find() public view returns(bool) {
            for(uint i = 0; i < arr.length; i++ /*++i*/) {
            if(arr[i] == 5) {
                return true;
            }
        }
        return false;
    }
}

When I run this contract using i++ this is what the contract's cost is:

// i++
// gas  388824 gas
// transaction cost 338107 gas 
// execution cost   338107 gas 
// foobar.find() execution cost 36221 gas

And when I run the same function using ++i, this is what the cost is:

// ++i
// gas  388327 gas
// transaction cost 337675 gas 
// execution cost   337675 gas
// foobar.find() execution cost 36201 gas

Clearly, i++ costs more gas than ++i, But Why? Thanks

2
  • 5
    Pre-increment and post-increment usually result in slightly different execution steps, this is not unique to Solidity. Related: What is the difference between ++i and i++?
    – Mast
    Aug 7, 2022 at 18:18
  • 1
    Newer versions of solidity should optimize this. In the past, the difference could be attributed to the codegen for i++ not getting inlined. Try --via-ir with the optimizer, they should have identical gas cost, except when the semantics are different.
    – hrkrshnn
    Aug 9, 2022 at 18:28

1 Answer 1

29

They do not work the same. i++ gets compiled to something like

j = i;
i = i + 1;
return j

while ++i gets compiled to something like

i = i + 1;
return i;

Long story short, i++ returns the non-incremented value, and ++i returns the incremented value, so for example, doing

i = 0;
array[i++];

will access the value at index 0 in the array, while array[++i] will access the value at index 1.

9
  • 3
    +1 for "They do not work the same.". [Too] Many people make this mistake.
    – Phill W.
    Aug 8, 2022 at 11:27
  • 8
    Though you'd expect most modern compilers to be able to automatically optimise i++ into the same operations as ++i if the value of the expression is not actually being used like in the OPs example... Aug 8, 2022 at 11:44
  • 2
    this is the kind of thing an optimizing compiler could reasonably be expected to optimize tho.. for example gcc auto-optimize this on -O2 and -Og but not -O0 - notably the PHP language does not optimize this at all (:
    – hanshenrik
    Aug 8, 2022 at 13:21
  • 5
    Relevant Google-able terms are "prefix operator" (++i) and "postfix operator" (i++) operator. For completeness: there's also an "infix operator" (i + 1).
    – minnmass
    Aug 8, 2022 at 13:48
  • 3
    @SeanBurton does Ethereum use dumb compilers on purpose for security? optimizations have created wrong code and security vulnerabilities before
    – user253751
    Aug 8, 2022 at 13:51

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