Should I replace if else statements with tables?

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#1

Throughout my scripts, I have been replacing if else statements that are about 4 to 6 else if statements long with tables thinking it would help for optimisation.

I’m wondering if replacing if else statements with tables is better for optimisation. I find this necessary because I need to run checks on render stepped heart beats for about 4-6 if else statements

I tried running these two functions

 local v = 5 
local loop = {
	function() 
	end,
	function() 
	end,
	function() 
	end,
	function() 
	end,
	function() 
		print(tick()) 
	end
} 
print(tick()) loop[v]()

I get a difference of about 0.0001 to 0.0003

local v = 5 
print(tick()) 
if v == 1 then 
elseif v == 2 then
elseif v == 3 then 
elseif v == 4 then 
elseif v == 5 then 
	print(tick())
end

I also get around a difference of about 0.0001 to 0.0003

Would this difference be insignificant even if I was running these statements every heartbeat.

If statement won't run
#2

yeah indexing a table is better then a bunch of if-statements in my opinion. (atleast when you want smaller code) but i’m unaware of the exact comparisons in speed/resource usage.

#3

Have you used indexing for optimising in any of your projects and if so, were any of those uses in loops with a wait of less than a second?

#4

yeah, if your running these sorts of checks in a fast loop, then i don’t think you’ll see much a performance difference tbh, but i imagine this decision is really based on how much you want to optimize memory usage.

for example, some BIG games would probably avoid doing this sort of action on the client (in order to preserve memory for other stuff.)

that being said it also depends on the types and amount of values that are in the table and how many references it would take to reach the specified value (if its deep within a table)

so up to you i suppose.

#5

What do you mean by preserve memory? Will using if-else statements preserve memory?

#6

i think in the case of “preserving memory” it would be best to use a couple if-statements rather than predefining a constant table beforehand. (especially if that table is never disposed of afterwards)

but it really just depends on what your doing sometimes, so just try to keep yourself flexible, because you wont see much of a difference in memory either unless we’re talking about some bigger tables.

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#7

Thanks, I’m not really sure if there is a significant impact between the two in regards to speed but I’ll keep in mind the memory usage and I’ll more be flexible depending on the size of the statements.

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#8

I dont see a significant impact in this current case, but definitely worth watching out for it on bigger projects and yeah np

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