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    • ✒️Gas Saving Technique 21: Unneeded If statements
    • 🌗Gas Saving Technique 22: >= is cheaper than >
    • 🎒Gas Saving Technique 23: Public to private constants
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    • ⚽Gas Saving Technique 31: Optimize Storage by Avoiding Booleans
    • 🔙Gas Saving Technique 32: Optimal Use of Named Return Variables in Solidity
    • 🛢️Gas Saving Technique 33: Making Functions Payable for Optimized Gas Costs
    • ✍️Gas Saving Technique 34: Optimizing Storage References in Smart Contracts
    • ⛰️Gas Saving Technique 35: Usage of uints/ints smaller than 32 bytes (256 bits) incurs overhead
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    • 🎆Gas Saving Technique 38: Upgrading Solidity Compiler to Improve Gas Efficiency and Security
    • 🕶️Gas Saving Technique 39: Avoiding Duplicated Code for Gas Savings
    • 😄Gas Saving Technique 40: Removal of Unused Internal Functions for Gas Savings
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    • ⛏️Gas Saving Technique 42: `require` vs`assert`
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Gas Saving Technique 22: >= is cheaper than >

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Last updated 1 year ago

Introduction: In the meticulous world of Solidity programming, the nuances between strict and non-strict comparisons might seem trivial. However, these minute details can play a significant role in gas efficiency. This tutorial aims to shed light on the advantages of using non-strict comparisons over their strict counterparts in terms of gas optimization.

Concept: When it comes to inequality comparisons in Solidity, non-strict inequalities like >= are often cheaper in gas than their strict counterparts, such as >. This gas differential arises from the supplementary checks (like ISZERO) associated with strict inequalities. Hence, a small shift in programming practice—favoring non-strict comparisons where applicable—can lead to gas savings.

Underlying Problem:

  1. Supplementary Opcodes: Strict inequalities involve extra operations like the ISZERO opcode, which costs an additional 3 gas units.

  2. Minor Overhead Accumulates: In contracts with frequent calls or in high-traffic protocols, these seemingly minuscule gas costs can accumulate rapidly, leading to more expensive interactions over time.

Example:

Using Strict Inequality:

solidityCopy codereturn principal > calculatedDebt ? principal : calculatedDebt;

Optimized with Non-Strict Inequality:

solidityCopy codereturn principal >= calculatedDebt ? principal : calculatedDebt + 1;

Recommendation:

  1. Scan your contracts to identify occurrences of strict inequalities, like >.

  2. Consider if the logic allows for replacement with non-strict comparisons, such as >=, without compromising functionality.

  3. Modify the code and adjust any affected logic accordingly.

  4. Conduct rigorous testing to verify that the change hasn't introduced any unwanted behaviors.

  5. As a best practice, always favor non-strict comparisons when writing new contracts, unless strictness is necessary for the contract's logic.

Conclusion: The world of smart contracts is one where the difference of a few gas units can have a sizable impact, especially over numerous transactions. Embracing non-strict comparisons offers a simple yet effective method to optimize for gas efficiency. As developers, focusing on such minute details ensures the development of cost-effective and efficient smart contracts, benefiting both the end-users and the network.

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