Comparing BigDecimal and int in Java

Question

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 ?

Answer 1

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.