Does using a temp variable while swapping two numbers have any affect on space complexity?

Question

Ques. 1.) I was writing a code to swap two numbers using a temp variable. I don't know how this temp variable will affect the space complexity in this case. Below is the code.

public void swap(int a, int b){
   int temp;
   temp = a;
   a = b;
   b = temp;
}

Ques. 2) How does using these extra variables like temp have an affect on space complexity in any function in general code practice?

I think that would be helpful stackoverflow.com/questions/36363550/… — MrFisherman
– MrFisherman, Commented Jan 8, 2021 at 16:46
1) How do you solve it without the temp variable? 2) Can you give any way that adding a new variable does not increase space complexity? — Scott Hunter
– Scott Hunter, Commented Jan 8, 2021 at 16:47
1. The method won't actually swap the variables for the caller. 2. It's O(1). — Unmitigated
– Unmitigated, Commented Jan 8, 2021 at 16:47
An int is around four bytes on typical platforms. Looking at the space impact of the temp variable like an extreme microoptimization at best, unless you're somehow severely memory-constrained. — nanofarad
– nanofarad, Commented Jan 8, 2021 at 16:49
@RandomCoder_01 that is actually a code smell rules.sonarsource.com/java/type/Code%20Smell/RSPEC-1450 . And the space used by local variable will be almost immediately available for reuse after the method is gone. — dreamcrash
– dreamcrash, Commented Jan 8, 2021 at 17:14

novarx · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-08 16:54:18Z

1

General Answer: No, this does neither affect space- nor time-complexity

Space complexity is to declare, how how much space is used, when the algorithm has to process a lot (converging to infinity) of data. Since this temp variable is just used in the scope of this method, this would not affect the space in a space-complexity manner.

This article explains the topic quite good => https://www.baeldung.com/cs/space-complexity

answered Jan 8, 2021 at 16:54

novarx

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