Benchmark: arguments destructure vs parameters

HTML Preparation code:

<!--your preparation HTML code goes here-->

Script Preparation code:

function a() {
    let [q, w, e, r, t, y] = arguments
    return q + w + y + e + r + t + y
}

function b(q, w, e, r, t, y) {
    return q + w + y + e + r + t + y
}

Tests:

arguments
for(let j = 500; j--;)a(1,2,3,4,5,6)
parameters
for(let j = 500; j--;)b(1,2,3,4,5,6)

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
arguments
parameters

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: one year ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15; rv:133.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/133.0

Browser/OS: Firefox 133 on Mac OS X 10.15

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
arguments	56925.1 Ops/sec
parameters	1776235.2 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

The provided benchmark compares the performance of two different JavaScript function definition styles: using the arguments object versus using named parameters.

### Benchmark Overview
1. **Functions Tested**:
   - **Function `a`**: Uses the `arguments` object to handle a variable number of arguments.
   - **Function `b`**: Uses explicit named parameters to accept a fixed number of arguments.

### Test Cases
The benchmark is set up with two specific test cases:
- **Test Case 1: `arguments`** 
  - Executes the function `a` 500 times with predefined values (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).
- **Test Case 2: `parameters`**
  - Executes the function `b` 500 times with the same predefined values.

### Pros and Cons
- **Function Using `arguments` (Function `a`)**:
  - **Pros**:
    - Flexibility: It can accept any number of arguments, making it dynamic to various function calls.
    - Simplicity in some cases, as you don't need to define all parameters explicitly.
  - **Cons**:
    - Performance: Accessing the `arguments` object may be slower as it adds an extra layer of overhead.
    - Not as readable: Developers may find it less clear what arguments are expected compared to named parameters.

- **Function Using Named Parameters (Function `b`)**:
  - **Pros**:
    - Performance: Named parameters typically execute faster as they are directly referenced.
    - Clarity: The function signature clearly indicates expected input, making the code more readable.
  - **Cons**:
    - Fixed number of arguments: It cannot accept more or fewer arguments than specified without causing errors.

### Benchmark Results
The benchmark results show a significant difference in performance between the two approaches:
- **Function `b` (parameters)** executed at approximately **543,612** executions per second.
- **Function `a` (arguments)** executed at approximately **2,833** executions per second.

### Conclusions
From the results, it's evident that using named parameters (`b`) drastically outperforms using the `arguments` object (`a`).

### Considerations and Alternatives
While the benchmark compares these two specific methods, other alternatives include:
- **Rest Parameters**: ES6 introduced rest parameters (`...args`) which allow a function to accept a variable number of arguments while providing cleaner syntax and better performance than the traditional `arguments` object. This is a modern alternative to consider when you need flexibility without compromising performance.
- **Object Destructuring**: Another approach involves passing an object to a function and using destructuring to extract values. This combines the clarity of named parameters with the flexibility of accepting varying input, though it would require constructing an object each time the function is called.

Overall, the choice between using the `arguments` object versus named parameters (and other alternatives) should consider both performance implications and code maintainability based on the specific use case.

Related benchmarks:

arguments destructure vs parameters (version: 1)

Comparing performance of: arguments vs parameters

Created: one year ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

arguments

parameters

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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