What is the BigDecimal.min() method in Java?

BigDecimal is an immutable, arbitrary-precision signed decimal number. BigDecimal contains an arbitrary precision integer unscaled value and a 32-bit integer scale. For example, in the value 10.11, 1011 is the unscaled value, and 2 is the scale. The BigDecimal class provides operations for arithmetic, scale manipulation, rounding, comparison, hashing, and format conversion. Read more about the BigDecimal class here

The min method of the BigDecimal class returns the minimum value of the current object and the passed argument.

Syntax

public BigDecimal min(BigDecimal val)

Parameters

The min method takes a BigDecimal object as a parameter.

Return value

  • If the parameter is less than the current object value, then min returns the parameter. Otherwise, the method returns the current object.

  • If the parameter and current object are equal, then the min method returns either one.

Code

The example below demonstrates how to use the min method.

import java.math.BigDecimal;
class BigDecimalMinExample {
    public static void main( String args[] ) {
        BigDecimal val1 = new BigDecimal("99.01");
        BigDecimal val2 = new BigDecimal("99.022");
        BigDecimal result = val1.min(val2);
        System.out.println(result);
    }
}

Explanation

In the code above, we:

  • Import the BigDecimal class.

  • Create two BigDecimal objects, val1 with value 99.01 and val2 with value 99.022.

  • Call the min method on the val1 object with val2 as an argument. This method call will return the val1 object as a result because val1 < val2.

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