Benchmark: Intl.Collator.compare() vs localeCompare() - natural sort order

Script Preparation code:

var a = "z11";
var b = "z1";

var options = {
  sensitivity: 'base',
  numeric: true,
};

var collator = new Intl.Collator(undefined, options);

Tests:

localeCompare()
a.localeCompare(b, undefined, options) === 1
Intl.Collator.compare()
collator.compare(a, b) === 1

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
localeCompare()
Intl.Collator.compare()

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

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

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/122.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 122 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
localeCompare()	168711.7 Ops/sec
Intl.Collator.compare()	4051390.5 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 provided benchmark and its components.

**Benchmark Overview**

The benchmark compares two JavaScript methods for sorting strings in a natural order: `Intl.Collator.compare()` and `localeCompare()`. The test aims to measure which method is faster for multiple comparisons.

**Options Being Compared**

The options being compared are:

1. `sensitivity`: Set to `'base'`, this option controls the level of sensitivity in the sorting process. In natural ordering, the goal is to group consecutive numbers together (e.g., "01", "02") rather than separating them ("0", "2").
2. `numeric`: Set to `true`, this option indicates that the strings should be treated as numeric values.

**Pros and Cons of Different Approaches**

1. **Intl.Collator.compare()**:
	* Pros: More flexible, can handle a wide range of languages and cultures, provides more accurate results in natural ordering.
	* Cons: May be slower due to its complexity and the need for additional configuration options.
2. **localeCompare()**:
	* Pros: Faster, widely supported, and easy to use.
	* Cons: Less flexible, may not provide accurate results in certain languages or cultures.

**Library Used**

The `Intl.Collator` library is used in this benchmark. `Intl.Collator` is a part of the JavaScript Intl API (Internationalization API), which provides functionality for handling different languages and cultures in web applications.

**Special JS Feature/Syntax**

None mentioned explicitly, but it's worth noting that the use of `Intl.Collator` relies on the ECMAScript standardization efforts, specifically the introduction of the Intl API in ECMAScript 2015 (ES6).

**Alternative Approaches**

Other alternatives for natural ordering could include:

1. **Regular expressions**: By using a custom regular expression pattern to match consecutive numbers and handle special cases.
2. **Custom sorting algorithms**: Implementing a custom algorithm, such as the "natural sort" algorithm, which is a variation of the standard merge sort algorithm designed specifically for natural ordering.

However, these alternatives are generally less efficient and more error-prone than using `Intl.Collator.compare()` or `localeCompare()`, especially considering the need for language and culture support.

Related benchmarks:

Intl.Collator.compare() vs localeCompare() - natural sort order (version: 0)

localeCompare is an abstraction of Intl.Collator, thus they can accept the same options. This test shows that using Intl.Collator is quicker for multiple comparisons.

Comparing performance of: localeCompare() vs Intl.Collator.compare()

Created: 3 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

localeCompare()

Intl.Collator.compare()

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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