Benchmark: Symbol vs String property square bracket, loop

Script Preparation code:

var foo1 = {};
var foo2 = {};
var sym = [Symbol("key1"), Symbol("key2"), Symbol("key3"), Symbol("key4"), Symbol("key5"), Symbol("key6"), Symbol("key7"), Symbol("key8"), Symbol("key9"), Symbol("key0")];
var str = ["key1", "key2", "key3", "key4", "key5", "key6", "key7", "key8", "key9", "key0"];

Tests:

Symbol
for(const k of sym) foo1[k] = 1;
String
for(const k of str) foo2[k] = 1;

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
Symbol
String

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 2 years ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/119.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 119 on Linux

View result in a separate tab

Symbol

2.8M/s

String

2.7M/s

View exact numbers

Test name	Executions per second
✓ Symbol	2,786,229 Ops/sec
String	2,723,901 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 benchmark definition and test cases.

**Benchmark Definition**

The provided JSON represents a JavaScript microbenchmark, which is a small piece of code designed to measure the performance of specific aspects of JavaScript. In this case, the benchmark measures the performance difference between using Symbol properties versus String properties in an array loop.

**Script Preparation Code**

Before running the tests, the script preparation code defines two objects: `foo1` and `foo2`, both initialized as empty objects. Additionally, it defines a `sym` variable, which is an array of 10 Symbols with unique keys (using the `Symbol()` function), and a corresponding `str` variable, which is an array of 10 strings.

**Html Preparation Code**

There is no HTML preparation code provided, indicating that this benchmark does not rely on any specific HTML structure or rendering.

**Individual Test Cases**

The benchmark consists of two test cases:

1. **Symbol**: This test case uses the `sym` array and assigns a value to each Symbol property using a `for...of` loop.
2. **String**: This test case uses the `str` array and assigns a value to each string index using a similar `for...of` loop.

**Options Compared**

The benchmark compares two options:

* Using Symbols (`sym`) as property keys
* Using strings (`str`) as property keys

**Pros and Cons of Different Approaches**

Using Symbols has several advantages over using strings as property keys:

Pros:

* **Performance**: Symbols are generally faster to access than strings because they use a hash table lookup instead of a string comparison.
* **Security**: Symbols are less susceptible to tampering or manipulation compared to strings, which can be vulnerable to changes or exploits.

Cons:

* **Browser support**: Although most modern browsers support Symbols, some older versions may not. In this benchmark, Chrome 119 is used, which supports Symbols.
* **Documentation and visibility**: Symbols are less commonly used in code due to their esoteric nature, making them harder to document and understand for new developers.

On the other hand, using strings has its own advantages:

Pros:

* **Readability and understanding**: Strings are more familiar and easier to read than Symbols, as most developers are accustomed to working with strings.
* **Browser support**: All modern browsers support strings, ensuring that any test code will work across various platforms.

Cons:

* **Performance**: As mentioned earlier, strings are slower to access than Symbols due to the string comparison algorithm used by JavaScript engines.
* **Security**: Strings can be more vulnerable to manipulation or tampering compared to Symbols.

**Library and Purpose**

In this benchmark, no libraries are explicitly required. However, it's worth noting that some of these libraries may influence performance:

* None

**Special JS Features or Syntax**

The benchmark uses the `Symbol()` function, which is a built-in JavaScript feature introduced in ECMAScript 2015 (ES6). This allows for creating unique and unambiguous property keys.

However, since this benchmark primarily focuses on comparing Symbol and string properties, it does not rely on any other advanced JavaScript features or syntax.

Symbol vs String property square bracket, loop (version: 0) Benchmark.js

Comparing performance of: `Symbol vs String`

Created: 2 years ago by: Guest

Go to the latest result

Symbol

String

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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

Symbol vs String property square bracket, loop (version: 0) Benchmark.js

Comparing performance of: Symbol vs String

Created: 2 years ago by: Guest

Go to the latest result

Symbol

String

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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

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Comparing performance of: `Symbol vs String`