Benchmark: Math.min() vs Array.reduce()

Script Preparation code:

var values = new Array(5000);

for (let i = 0; i < values.length; ++i) {
    values[i] = i % 20;
}

Tests:

Math.min
return Math.min(...values);
Reduce
return values.reduce((prev, curr) => { if (curr < prev) return curr; return prev; }, 0);

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
Math.min
Reduce

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: one year ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/68.0.3424.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 68 on Linux

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
Math.min	146687.9 Ops/sec
Reduce	67495.3 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

**Overview of the Benchmark**

The provided benchmark measures the performance difference between two methods in JavaScript: `Math.min()` and `Array.reduce()`. Both methods are used to find the minimum value in an array.

**Options Compared**

Two options are compared:

1. **`Math.min()`**: This method directly returns the smallest element from the input array.
2. **`Array.reduce()`**: This method applies a callback function to each element in the array, reducing it to a single output value (in this case, the minimum value).

**Pros and Cons of Each Approach**

1. **`Math.min()`**:
	* Pros:
		+ Efficient, as it only iterates over a subset of elements.
		+ Simple implementation.
	* Cons:
		+ Only works with arrays that contain at least one element.
		+ Not suitable for non-numerical data types (e.g., strings, objects).
2. **`Array.reduce()`**:
	* Pros:
		+ Flexible, as it can be used to reduce an array of any type.
		+ Can be easily modified to perform different operations on the elements.
	* Cons:
		+ Less efficient than `Math.min()` for numerical arrays, as it requires iterating over all elements.
		+ More complex implementation.

**Library Used**

In this benchmark, the `Array.reduce()` method is used with a custom callback function. The library here is not explicitly mentioned, but the syntax and behavior suggest that it's a standard JavaScript library ( likely ECMAScript).

**Special JavaScript Feature/Syntax**

The benchmark uses the spread operator (`...`) in the `Math.min()` implementation, which is a relatively recent feature introduced in ECMAScript 2018. This allows for a more concise way of passing multiple arguments to the function.

**Other Alternatives**

If you need to find the minimum value in an array, other alternatives include:

1. **Using `Math.min()` with a specific set of elements**: Instead of using `Array.reduce()`, you can pass an array of numbers directly to `Math.min()`. For example: `Math.min(10, 20, 30)`.

2. **Using a third-party library**: There are libraries like Lodash or Underscore.js that provide additional utility functions for array operations, including finding the minimum value.

3. **Implementing your own solution**: You can also implement a custom function to find the minimum value in an array, which might be more efficient than using `Array.reduce()` depending on the specific use case.

Overall, the choice between `Math.min()` and `Array.reduce()` depends on the specific requirements of your application, such as performance, flexibility, or ease of implementation.

Related benchmarks:

Math.min() vs Array.reduce() (version: 0)

Compare speed of Math.min() vs Array.reduce().

Comparing performance of: Math.min vs Reduce

Created: 5 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

Math.min

Reduce

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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