[erlang-questions] byte_size/1 vs variable access

[Loïc Hoguin]

Hello,

Been wondering something pretty much insignificant recently.

When I need the size of a binary I tend to create a variable, say:

DataSize = byte_size(Data)

and then I reuse this variable in the function.

But considering byte_size/1 is O(1) I am wondering if perhaps that's a 
little pointless. Is it even worth creating a variable for this? Is 
perhaps the variable optimized out? Perhaps accessing a variable 
contents and calling byte_size/1 are equivalent operations? Or the GC 
that will follow is not worth what little is saved by creating a 
variable in the first place?

If someone could shed some light on this perhaps I could stop creating 
variables like this and simplify my code a little more.

Thank you.

-- 
Loïc Hoguin
http://ninenines.eu