Benchmark: typeof vs instanceof vs constructor vs toString

Script Preparation code:

var data = 1000n;

Tests:

typeof
console.log(typeof(data) == 'bigint');
instanceof
console.log(data instanceof BigInt);
constructor
console.log(data.constructor == BigInt);
toString
console.log(Object.prototype.toString.call(data) == '[object BigInt]');

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
typeof
instanceof
constructor
toString

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

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

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:132.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/132.0

Browser/OS: Firefox 132 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
typeof	198355.2 Ops/sec
instanceof	193881.2 Ops/sec
constructor	193293.8 Ops/sec
toString	190924.9 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

The provided benchmark measures the performance of different ways to check if a value is a `BigInt` in JavaScript.

A `BigInt` (Big Integer) is a type in JavaScript that can handle arbitrarily large integers, which are useful for mathematical operations and cryptographic applications.

Let's analyze each test case:

1. **typeof**: This checks if the result of `typeof data` equals `'bigint'`. The problem with this approach is that it may return incorrect results when the value is not a `BigInt`, but rather an integer in the range of 53 bits (a limitation of JavaScript integers). Additionally, some JavaScript engines might optimize away this check.

2. **instanceof**: This checks if `data` is an instance of `BigInt`. While more accurate than `typeof`, this method still has limitations: `BigInt` instances are not iterable or enumerable in the same way as other objects. However, since a single value can't be both an integer and a BigInt at the same time (except for the specific number 0n), this will only return true if you have created a number object with the BigInt type.

3. **constructor**: This checks if the constructor of `data` is `BigInt`. This method is more accurate than `typeof`, but it also has limitations: since `BigInt` instances do not have constructors (i.e., they are not objects), this will return false for all cases where data would be a BigInt.

4. **toString**: This checks if the result of calling `Object.prototype.toString.call(data)` equals `'[object BigInt]'`. While more accurate than `typeof`, this method has limitations since it requires an object reference (the function is called on `data`).

Considering these points, the order of performance from best to worst might be:

- instanceof
- typeof
- toString
- constructor

**Pros and Cons:**

*   instanceof: Pros - more accurate, Cons - not directly supported in all JavaScript environments, because it is not defined for BigInt.
*   typeof: Pros - Simple, but the limitation on 53 bit integers makes this less reliable than instanceof. It also returns false positives in certain scenarios (e.g., when you're comparing a string with the result of typeof).
*   toString: Pros - Works on all platforms and browsers where the first two methods don't. However, calling Object.prototype.toString.call() is an additional operation which can slow down the test.
*   constructor: The least reliable option for testing, because no BigInt object has a constructor function.

**Other Considerations:**

If you want to make this benchmark more comprehensive, consider adding tests for:

-   Checking if data is of type `number`, which would return true positives in cases where data has 53-bit or lower precision.
-   Checking if data is an instance of another class.

Related benchmarks:

typeof vs instanceof vs constructor vs toString (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: typeof vs instanceof vs constructor vs toString

Created: 4 years ago by: Registered User

Jump to the latest result

typeof

instanceof

constructor

toString

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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