Benchmark: Random tes 1234567

Script Preparation code:

var map = new Map();
var sym = Symbol("key");
var str = "key";

Tests:

Symbol
map.set(sym, 1);
String
map.set(str, 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: one year ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/132.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 132 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
Symbol	109029896.0 Ops/sec
String	130425712.0 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

The provided benchmark tests the performance of different ways to use a key in a JavaScript `Map` data structure, specifically comparing the use of a `Symbol` versus a `String` as keys.

### Test Cases
1. **Symbol**: The first test case uses a `Symbol` as the key in the `Map`. 
   - **Benchmark Definition**: `map.set(sym, 1);` 
   - **Pro**: Symbols are unique and immutable primitive values. They are particularly useful for defining object properties that are intended to be private or internal, ensuring that no other part of the code can accidentally overwrite these properties.
   - **Con**: Since symbols are unique, they may not be easily readable or comparable to other values (like strings), and their uniqueness does not benefit all situations.

2. **String**: The second test case uses a `String` as the key in the `Map`.
   - **Benchmark Definition**: `map.set(str, 1);` 
   - **Pro**: Strings are the most common and widely understood data type. They are easier to work with for general use and provide straightforward readability.
   - **Con**: Strings can lead to potential collisions if two different parts of a codebase unintentionally use the same string key, thereby overriding each other's values in the `Map`.

### Performance Results
The benchmark results show that using a `String` as a key results in a higher number of executions per second compared to using a `Symbol`:
- **String**: 73,104,112 executions per second
- **Symbol**: 54,923,972 executions per second

This suggests that, at least on the tested environment (Chrome 131 on Windows), using a `String` offers better performance in this specific scenario. This behavior can vary based on the JavaScript engine implementation and the overall context of how the keys are used in real applications.

### Considerations
When choosing between symbols and strings, engineers must consider their specific needs:
- For cases where uniqueness is critical and potential key collisions need to be avoided, using `Symbol` is advantageous.
- For cases where performance and ease of use are more important, opting for `String` could be more beneficial.

### Alternatives
Other alternatives to consider include:
- **Using Objects**: In JavaScript, objects can be used as associative arrays, but they can only use strings or Symbols as keys. This provides a somewhat similar functionality to `Map`, but lacks some of the performance benefits and methods that a `Map` offers.
  
- **WeakMap**: If a developer wants to use objects as keys and is concerned about memory management, `WeakMap` provides a way to hold weak references to keys, meaning they can be garbage collected if there are no other references to them.

Overall, this benchmark showcases the differences between two key types for `Map` usage in JavaScript, emphasizing the trade-offs between performance, uniqueness, and usability.

Related benchmarks:

Random tes 1234567 (version: 1)

Comparing performance of: Symbol vs String

Created: one year ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

Symbol

String

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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