Benchmark: String() vs .toString() vs adding empty string

Tests:

String()
let num = 500; let nums = []; for(let i = 0; i < 100; ++i) { nums.push(String(num)); }
.toString()
let num = 500; let nums = []; for(let i = 0; i < 100; ++i) { nums.push(num.toString()); }
add empty string
let num = 500; let nums = []; for(let i = 0; i < 100; ++i) { nums.push(num + ''); }

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
String()
.toString()
add empty string

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
String()	1649765.5 Ops/sec
.toString()	1800365.4 Ops/sec
add empty string	1705237.9 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 explanation of the provided benchmark.

**Benchmark Definition**

The benchmark measures the performance difference between three approaches for converting an integer to a string: using `String()`, `.toString()`, and adding an empty string (`num + ''`).

**Options Compared**

1. **`String()`**: This method uses the built-in JavaScript function `String()` to convert the integer to a string.
2. **`.toString()`**: This method uses the dot notation (`.`) to access the `toString()` method of the number object, which is another way to convert an integer to a string.
3. **`num + ''`**: This approach concatenates the integer with an empty string using the `+` operator.

**Pros and Cons**

* **`String()`**:
	+ Pros: Most concise and expressive, as it directly converts the integer to a string.
	+ Cons: May be less efficient due to its overhead and possible internal conversions.
* **`.toString()`**:
	+ Pros: Can be more efficient than `String()`, as it avoids some overhead and only performs the necessary conversion.
	+ Cons: Less concise and may require more boilerplate code, as it uses dot notation.
* **`num + ''`**:
	+ Pros: Inexpensive and simple, as it only involves a basic concatenation operation.
	+ Cons: May be less expressive or readable than other approaches.

**Library and Special Features**

None of the options require any additional libraries or special JavaScript features beyond what's standard in modern browsers. However, it's worth noting that some older browsers may not support all these features or have different performance characteristics.

**Benchmark Results**

The latest benchmark results show that the order of execution per second for each test case is:

1. `add empty string`: 5424863.0
2. `.toString()`: 1571274.0
3. `String()`: 147139.625

This suggests that adding an empty string (`num + ''`) may be the most efficient approach, while using dot notation (`.`) is relatively slower.

**Alternatives**

If you're interested in exploring alternative approaches or optimizing these results further, here are some options:

1. **Use a different language**: Depending on your use case and performance requirements, rewriting the benchmark in a different language like C++ or Rust might provide better performance.
2. **Profile and optimize specific code paths**: Identify bottlenecks in the code that's being measured and optimize those areas specifically to improve performance.
3. **Explore modern JavaScript optimizations**: Investigate recent changes to the ECMAScript standard, such as ` BigInt` support, and how they affect string conversions.

By understanding these alternatives, you can further fine-tune your benchmarking efforts to achieve optimal results for your specific use case.

Related benchmarks:

String() vs .toString() vs adding empty string (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: String() vs .toString() vs add empty string

Created: 2 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

String()

.toString()

add empty string

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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