Benchmark: String() vs .toString() vs template-string vs string-concat fixed

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()); }
template string
let num = 500; let nums = []; for(let i = 0; i < 100; ++i) { nums.push(`${num}`); }
string concat
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()
template string
string concat

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) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/130.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 130 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
String()	74000.2 Ops/sec
.toString()	939139.4 Ops/sec
template string	2710728.8 Ops/sec
string concat	2635372.5 Ops/sec

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated one year ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

The benchmark you've provided tests the performance of various methods for converting a number to a string in JavaScript. The specific methods being compared are:

1. **String()**
2. **.toString() method**
3. **Template string (using backticks)**
4. **String concatenation (using the + operator)**

### Description of Each Approach:

1. **`String(num)`**:
   - This is a global function that converts a given argument (in this case, a number) into a string.
   - **Pros**:
     - Simple and straightforward syntax.
     - Works with any data type.
   - **Cons**:
     - Generally slower than other methods, as evidenced by the benchmark results.
   
2. **`num.toString()`**:
   - This is a method of the `Number` object that returns a string representation of the number.
   - **Pros**:
     - More optimized for number-to-string conversion since it directly operates on a number.
   - **Cons**:
     - Cannot be used on non-number values, meaning it will throw an error if the argument is not a number.

3. **Template string (`${num}`)**:
   - This uses JavaScript's template literals (denoted by backticks) to embed expressions in string literals.
   - **Pros**:
     - Highly readable and concise.
     - Can easily include variables and expressions, making it versatile for string interpolation.
   - **Cons**:
     - While it was historically less performant, modern JavaScript engines have optimized template literals, making them quite fast, as seen in the benchmark results.

4. **String Concatenation (`num + ""`)**:
   - This method adds an empty string to a number, causing JavaScript to coerce the number to a string.
   - **Pros**:
     - Very concise and straightforward.
   - **Cons**:
     - Less explicit in intent compared to the other methods, which can lead to misunderstandings in readability. Potential risks of confusion if used in more complex expressions.

### Benchmark Results Overview:

According to the benchmark results:
- The **template string** resulted in the highest performance, executing roughly **5.6 million executions per second**.
- **String concatenation** followed closely behind.
- The **.toString()** method performed significantly slower than the concatenation and template string methods.
- The **String()** function was the slowest, with less than **150,000 executions per second**.

### Considerations:

- **Readability vs. Performance**: While performance is essential, code readability and maintainability are equally important. When using these methods, consider how understandable the code will be for other developers.
  
- **Scope of Use**: If you're converting numbers to strings in a tight loop or performance-critical code, the choice of method can have a noticeable impact. For less critical sections, clarity might take precedence over performance.

### Alternatives:

Other alternatives that could be explored include:
- Using libraries like **Lodash** or **Underscore.js** that may have utility functions for string manipulation, though for basic number-to-string conversion, direct JavaScript methods are usually sufficient and more performant.
- If working with big integers or more complex number formats, libraries like **BigInt** or **decimal.js** could also be explored, though they aren't strictly needed for standard operations.

In conclusion, when choosing a method to convert numbers to strings in JavaScript, consider both performance in the context of your specific application and the readability of your code for others.

Related benchmarks:

String() vs .toString() vs template-string vs string-concat fixed (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: String() vs .toString() vs template string vs string concat

Created: one year ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

String()

.toString()

template string

string concat

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated one year ago):