Comparing BigDecimal and int in Java

Which one is the best way of comparing a BigDecimal and an int in Java : coverting the BigDecimal to int or converting int to BigDecimal ?

How does BigDecimal compare to int?

Use the compareTo method of BigDecimal : public int compareTo(BigDecimal val) Compares this BigDecimal with the specified BigDecimal. Returns: -1, 0, or 1 as this BigDecimal is numerically less than, equal to, or greater than val.

Is BigDecimal an integer?

A BigDecimal consists of an arbitrary precision integer unscaled value and a 32-bit integer scale. If zero or positive, the scale is the number of digits to the right of the decimal point.

If you expect the BigDecimal value to be really big (i.e. outside the range of int values, which is -2³¹ to 2³¹-1) and/or to contain decimal digits, or simply want to play safe, you should convert the int to BigDecimal to avoid overflow / truncation errors.

Otherwise, if performance is a really big issue (which is rare), it might be better the other way around.