Better Increment

Incrementing operations are fundamental in contract development due to their frequent use in counting and looping mechanisms. Each method of incrementing has subtle nuances that may affect gas consumption and readability:

• count += 1: This expression directly adds one to the value of count. It is clear and explicit, which enhances readability. This form is ideal when you want to emphasize the incrementation by a specific value.

• count = count + 1: This method explicitly shows the operation being performed on count. It's very straightforward, making the code easy to understand. Although it may seem redundant compared to count += 1, it is sometimes preferred for its clarity in demonstrating that count is being incremented by exactly one.

• count++: Known as the post-increment operator, this increments count by one but returns the original value before it was incremented. It is useful in loops and when the increment operation needs to be done after the current value has been used.

• ++count: The pre-increment operator increments count before its value is used in any operation. It's slightly more efficient than count++ when the updated value is needed immediately, as it avoids the temporary copy that post-increment might involve.

DemoCode

Here we use different methods to increment, observing the gas differences.

contract IncrementerA {
    //gas:204
    function incrementA() external pure {
        uint count;
        count += 1;
    }
}

contract IncrementerB {
    // gas:204
    function incrementB() external pure {
        uint count;
        count = count + 1;
    }
}

contract IncrementerC {
    // gas: 198
    function incrementC() external pure {
        uint count;
        count++;
    }
}

contract IncrementerD {
    // gas: 193
    function incrementD() external pure {
        uint count;
        ++count;
    }
}

Recommendations for gas optimization:

🌟 It is recommended to use the ++n form for incrementing.