Benchmark: Splice vs Shift to remove from the beginning

Script Preparation code:

var array = Array.from({ length: 100 }).map((val, i) => i);

Tests:

Splice
var newArray = array.splice(0, 1);
Shift
var newArray = array.shift();

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
Splice
Shift

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

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

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 120 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
Splice	6816156.0 Ops/sec
Shift	8299304.0 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 JSON data and explain what's being tested.

**Benchmark Definition**
The benchmark is comparing two approaches to remove an element from the beginning of an array: `Array.prototype.splice()` (Splice) and `Array.prototype.shift()` (Shift). The goal is to determine which approach is faster.

**Options Compared**

* **Splice**: Uses `array.splice(0, 1)` to create a new array with one less element. This method modifies the original array.
* **Shift**: Uses `array.shift()` to remove and return the first element of the array, then creates a new array without this element.

**Pros and Cons**

* **Splice**:
	+ Pros: Can be more efficient for larger arrays since it doesn't require creating a new array. However, it modifies the original array.
	+ Cons: May not be as intuitive or readable as Shift, especially when dealing with complex array operations.
* **Shift**:
	+ Pros: More straightforward and easy to understand, especially for those familiar with removing elements from arrays.
	+ Cons: Requires creating a new array, which can be memory-intensive for large datasets.

**Library and Purpose**
In this benchmark, the `Array.prototype` is being used as a library. The `Array.prototype` is an extension of the built-in Array data type in JavaScript, providing additional methods like `splice()` and `shift()`. These methods are part of the standard JavaScript library, making it easy to use them without needing to include any external libraries.

**Special JS Feature/Syntax**
There doesn't appear to be any special JavaScript features or syntax being used in this benchmark. The code is straightforward and relies on standard JavaScript data types and array operations.

**Other Alternatives**

If you're interested in exploring alternative approaches, here are a few options:

* **Array.prototype.pop()` or `array.slice()`: Instead of removing an element from the beginning, these methods can remove the last element (using `pop()`) or create a new array with all elements removed (using `slice(0)`).
* **Custom implementation**: You could also write a custom function to remove an element from the beginning of an array using a different approach, such as iterating over the array and updating indices.

Keep in mind that these alternatives might not be relevant to this specific benchmark, but they demonstrate other ways to achieve similar results.

Related benchmarks:

Splice vs Shift to remove from the beginning (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: Splice vs Shift

Created: 2 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

Splice

Shift

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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