Benchmark: Bool check vs regex

Script Preparation code:

var values = [undefined, null, '', 'this is a test'];

Tests:

Bool check
values.forEach((value) => { if (value) return /test/i.test(value); return false; });
Regex
values.forEach((value) => { return /test/i.test(value); });

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
Bool check
Regex

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

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

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/132.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 132 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
Bool check	34492648.0 Ops/sec
Regex	13845773.0 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's dive into the world of JavaScript microbenchmarks.

**Benchmark Overview**

The provided JSON represents a simple benchmark that compares the performance of two approaches: using a boolean check and using a regular expression to test for the presence of a specific string ("test") in an array of values. The benchmark is designed to measure which approach is faster on different JavaScript engines.

**Script Preparation Code**

The script preparation code defines an array `values` containing four elements:

* `undefined`
* `null`
* An empty string (`''`)
* A string that contains the test substring ("this is a test")

This setup ensures that both approaches will encounter the target substring at least once during the benchmark.

**Html Preparation Code**

The HTML preparation code is empty, which suggests that the benchmark only requires JavaScript execution and does not involve any DOM-related operations.

**Benchmark Definition**

The benchmark definition consists of two test cases:

1. **Bool Check**: This approach uses a simple boolean check (`if (value)`). If the value is truthy, it returns immediately. Otherwise, it returns `false`.
2. **Regex**: This approach uses a regular expression (`/test/i.test(value)`) to test for the presence of the target substring in each value.

**Library and Purpose**

There are no libraries explicitly mentioned in the benchmark definition. However, the use of `/test/i.test()` implies that the JavaScript engine is using the ECMAScript 5 or later regular expression syntax.

**Special JS Features or Syntax**

The benchmark does not require any special JavaScript features or syntax. It only uses standard JavaScript features like arrays, loops, and conditional statements.

**Performance Comparison**

In this benchmark, we have two competing approaches:

1. **Bool Check**: This approach is faster because it uses a simple boolean check that can be optimized by the JavaScript engine.
2. **Regex**: This approach is slower because it involves compiling and executing a regular expression, which requires additional overhead.

**Pros and Cons**

**Bool Check:**

* Pros:
	+ Faster execution time
	+ Less memory allocation required
* Cons:
	+ May not work correctly for certain edge cases (e.g., NaN or Infinity values)

**Regex:**

* Pros:
	+ More robust and flexible than the bool check approach
	+ Can handle various types of strings and characters
* Cons:
	+ Slower execution time due to regular expression compilation and execution

**Other Alternatives**

If we were to design an alternative benchmark, we could consider:

1. **Using a more complex array**: Instead of using a simple array with individual elements, we could use a more complex data structure like a linked list or a tree.
2. **Adding noise to the input data**: We could intentionally introduce errors or noise into the input data to make the benchmark more realistic and representative of real-world scenarios.
3. **Using different JavaScript engines**: Instead of only testing Chrome 92, we could test other popular JavaScript engines like V8 (Node.js), SpiderMonkey (Firefox), or SquirrelFish (Safari).
4. **Measuring memory usage**: We could modify the benchmark to measure memory allocation and garbage collection overhead in addition to execution time.

By exploring different alternatives, we can gain a deeper understanding of the performance characteristics of our chosen approach and identify potential bottlenecks that need optimization.

Related benchmarks:

Bool check vs regex (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: Bool check vs Regex

Created: 4 years ago by: Registered User

Jump to the latest result

Bool check

Regex

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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