Everyone came up with the right alternatives. Among XR, SLR, and SR, XR is thought best (not necessarily measurable better).
If you don't need a condition code (and certainly if you need to preserve a condition code), LHI is thought best. I'm not sure to what extent the fact that the first three are 2-byte instructions and LHI is a 4-byte instruction comes into play. It is apparent that LHI creates a bigger instruction-space footprint. That in turn can lead to increased cache line usage. Peter Relson z/OS Core Technology Design
