Benchmark: json stringify vs array tostring when long array

Script Preparation code:

function moreData(arr, left) {
  if(left === 0) return arr;
  else {
    arr.push(Math.floor(Math.random() * 256));
  	return moreData(arr, left - 1);
  }
}
function makeTestData() { return moreData([], 5000); }

Tests:

toString
makeTestData().toString()
JSON.stringify
JSON.stringify(makeTestData());

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
toString
JSON.stringify

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 7 days ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/26.4 Safari/605.1.15

Browser/OS: Safari 26 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
toString	14481.1 Ops/sec
JSON.stringify	13797.3 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 definition and test cases to understand what is being tested, compared, and their pros and cons.

**Benchmark Definition:**

The benchmark definition uses two functions:

1. `makeTestData()`: This function generates an array of 5000 random integers using recursion and push operation. The purpose of this function seems to be creating a large dataset for testing.
2. Two stringification functions:
	* `toString()`: Simply converts the generated array to a string using the built-in `toString()` method.
	* `JSON.stringify()`: Converts the generated array to a JSON string using the `JSON.stringify()` function.

**Test Cases:**

The benchmark definition consists of two test cases:

1. `toString`: Measures the execution time of converting the generated array to a string using the built-in `toString()` method.
2. `JSON.stringify`: Measures the execution time of converting the generated array to a JSON string using the `JSON.stringify()` function.

**Comparison:**

The benchmark is comparing the performance of two different approaches:

1. Built-in `toString()` method
2. `JSON.stringify()` function

**Pros and Cons:**

**Built-in `toString()` method:**

Pros:

* Lightweight and efficient, as it's a built-in function.
* Should be faster than JSON serialization.

Cons:

* May not provide the desired format or structure for the resulting string (e.g., formatting, escaping).
* May not handle complex data types well (e.g., objects, arrays with nested structures).

**JSON.stringify() function:**

Pros:

* Provides a standardized and widely supported format for serializing JSON data.
* Can handle complex data types, such as objects and arrays with nested structures.

Cons:

* May be slower than the built-in `toString()` method due to additional overhead from formatting and escaping.
* Requires an external library (in this case, built into the browser) to work correctly.

**Library:**

The `JSON.stringify()` function is part of the ECMAScript standard, but its implementation may vary between browsers. In this benchmark, it's likely that Chrome 113 is using a specific implementation.

**Special JS Feature or Syntax:**

There are no special JavaScript features or syntax used in this benchmark definition. It only relies on built-in functions and standard library calls.

**Alternatives:**

If you want to explore alternative approaches, consider the following:

1. Use a custom stringification function that provides more control over formatting and escaping.
2. Utilize libraries like `lodash` or `xml-js` for JSON serialization, which may offer better performance and features.
3. Investigate other data formats, such as binary serialization (e.g., `Buffer`) or XML serialization.

Keep in mind that the choice of approach depends on your specific requirements, such as formatting needs, data complexity, and performance concerns.

Related benchmarks:

json stringify vs array tostring when long array (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: toString vs JSON.stringify

Created: 2 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

toString

JSON.stringify

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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