Benchmark: multiplication vs exponentiation

Tests:

multiplication operator
let squared = 345 * 345;
exponentiation operator
let squared = 345**2

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
multiplication operator
exponentiation operator

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 17 days ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/148.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 148 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
multiplication operator	172191280.0 Ops/sec
exponentiation operator	172200288.0 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

I'll break down the provided benchmark and explain what's being tested, compared, and their pros/cons.

**Benchmark Overview**

The test measures the performance difference between two approaches to calculate the square of a number: manual multiplication (`*`) vs exponentiation operator (`**`).

**Options Compared**

1. **Manual Multiplication**: `let squared = 345 * 345;`
	* Pros:
		+ Easy to understand and implement for most developers.
		+ Works on older browsers and platforms without support for `**`.
	* Cons:
		+ More computationally expensive due to repeated multiplication.
2. **Exponentiation Operator**: `let squared = 345**2;`
	* Pros:
		+ Much faster than manual multiplication, especially for larger numbers.
		+ More concise and readable code.
	* Cons:
		+ May not work in older browsers or platforms without support for `**`.

**Library Used**

In both test cases, no libraries are explicitly mentioned. However, the exponentiation operator (`**`) is a built-in JavaScript operator that's supported by most modern browsers.

**Special JS Feature/Syntax**

The `**` operator is called the "exponentiation operator" or "power operator". It was introduced in ECMAScript 2016 (ES6) as a shorthand for calculating powers. Prior to ES6, developers would use the `Math.pow()` function or calculate powers manually.

**Other Alternatives**

If you want to implement manual multiplication instead of using the exponentiation operator, you could use the following approach:
```javascript
let squared = 345;
for (let i = 0; i < 2; i++) {
    squared *= 345;
}
```
However, this approach is less concise and readable compared to using the `**` operator.

If you want to explore other alternatives for calculating powers, you could use libraries like Math.js or exponent-js. However, these are not necessary for this simple benchmark.

In summary, the provided benchmark tests the performance difference between manual multiplication and the exponentiation operator in JavaScript. The test highlights the benefits of using built-in operators instead of manual calculations, making code more concise and readable.

Related benchmarks:

multiplication vs exponentiation (version: 0)

is it more performant to multiply a number by itself manually or use the exponentiation operator '**2'?

Comparing performance of: multiplication operator vs exponentiation operator

Created: 3 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

multiplication operator

exponentiation operator

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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