Is Bitwise OR a Valid Alternative to Math.floor for Flooring Floats?

Flooring Float Numbers with Bitwise OR 0

A recently discovered technique uses a bitwise OR operation with 0 to floor float numbers. This raises several questions regarding its functionality, advantages, and potential drawbacks.

Mechanism

Bitwise OR operates on 32-bit signed integers. By applying it to a float, the operation essentially converts the float to an integer, discarding any fractional part.

Performance

Benchmarks indicate that bitwise OR may offer a slight performance advantage over Math.floor.

Advantages

In specific scenarios, bitwise OR can provide a marginal performance edge over Math.floor.

Disadvantages

• Limited integer range (32-bit signed)
• Odd comparative behavior: While Math.floor(NaN) returns NaN, NaN | 0 results in 0
• Clarity concerns due to non-intuitive syntax

The above is the detailed content of Is Bitwise OR a Valid Alternative to Math.floor for Flooring Floats?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!