Benchmark: String.match vs. RegEx.test

Script Preparation code:

var string = "Hello world!";
var regex = /[A-Z][a-z]+ [a-z]+/;

Tests:

RegEx.test
regex.test(string);
String.match
string.match(regex);

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
RegEx.test
String.match

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 11 months ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:139.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/139.0

Browser/OS: Firefox 139 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
RegEx.test	51936340.0 Ops/sec
String.match	33834828.0 Ops/sec

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated one year ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's break down the benchmark and explain what's being tested.

**Benchmark Overview**

The benchmark compares two approaches for searching a regular expression (RegEx) in a string:

1. `String.match()`
2. `Regex.test()` (with RegEx)

We're testing these two approaches on a specific string: "Hello world!".

**Options Compared**

The benchmark is comparing the performance of two RegEx testing methods:

1. `String.match()`: This method returns an array of matches, where each match object contains the matched text and its position in the original string.
2. `Regex.test()`: This method tests whether a regular expression pattern matches any part of a given string.

**Pros and Cons**

Here's a brief summary of each approach:

1. **String.match()**:
	* Pros: Easy to use, returns an array of matches, can be used with String.prototype.
	* Cons: Can return multiple matches in a single execution, may have performance overhead due to the need to create match objects.
2. **Regex.test()**:
	* Pros: More efficient than String.match(), as it only needs to test for a single match. Returns `true` if there's a match or `false` otherwise.
	* Cons: Requires more manual handling of errors, returns a boolean value instead of an array.

**Library and Purpose**

In this benchmark, the RegEx engine is not explicitly specified, but based on the syntax, it appears to be using the JavaScript built-in RegExp object.

**Special JS Feature or Syntax**

This benchmark doesn't use any special JS features or syntax. It's a straightforward comparison of two common RegEx testing methods.

**Alternative Approaches**

Other approaches for searching RegEx in a string include:

1. **String.indexOf()**: Similar to String.match(), but returns the index of the first match instead of an array.
2. **Regex.exec()**: Similar to Regex.test(), but returns an array containing the matched text and its position in the original string.
3. **Using native methods like String.prototype.search() or RegExp.prototype.exec()**: These methods are more efficient than using String.match() or Regex.test() explicitly.

Keep in mind that these alternatives might have different performance characteristics, syntax, and use cases depending on your specific requirements.

Related benchmarks:

String.match vs. RegEx.test (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: RegEx.test vs String.match

Created: 5 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

RegEx.test

String.match

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated one year ago):