Benchmark: Split vs Regex vs Contains

HTML Preparation code:

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

Script Preparation code:

const testPath = "http://foo.org/smth/teachers/ad0bfc84-3d16-46c3-948c-2f8d08976fcc/bar";
const userIdPathSegments = ['students', 'teachers'];
const userIdPathSegmentRegexps = [new RegExp(/\/students\/(?<userId>\w+)/), new RegExp(/\/teachers\/(?<userId>\w+)/)];
const userIdPathSegments2 = ['/students/', '/teachers/'];

Tests:

split
const pathParts = testPath.split('/').filter(p => p); const userIdIndex = pathParts.findIndex(p => userIdPathSegments.some(aPN => p === aPN)); if (userIdIndex >= 0 && pathParts.length > userIdIndex + 1) { pathParts[userIdIndex + 1]; }
regex
for (let i = 0; i < userIdPathSegmentRegexps.length; i++) { const match = testPath.match(userIdPathSegmentRegexps[i]); if (Array.isArray(match) && match.length == 2 && match[1].length > 0) { match[1]; } }
string includes
for (let i = 0; i < userIdPathSegments2.length; i++) { if (testPath.includes(userIdPathSegments2[i])) { testPath.includes(userIdPathSegments2[i] + "ad0bfc84-3d16-46c3-948c-2f8d08976fcc"); } }

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
split
regex
string includes

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 3 months ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:132.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/132.0

Browser/OS: Firefox 132 on Linux

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
split	3291367.0 Ops/sec
regex	3419045.0 Ops/sec
string includes	13436308.0 Ops/sec

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated 3 months ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

The benchmark described in the provided JSON compares three different methods for extracting a user ID from a URL string: using `split`, using regular expressions, and using the `includes` method. Here's a breakdown of each approach, including its pros and cons, other considerations, and the libraries or features involved.

### 1. Split Method
**Code Explanation:**
This method splits the URL string into an array based on the '/' character and then finds the index of the segments of interest (in this case, 'students' and 'teachers'). If a match is found, it retrieves the user ID that appears right after the matching segment.

```javascript
const pathParts = testPath.split('/').filter(p => p);
const userIdIndex = pathParts.findIndex(p => userIdPathSegments.some(aPN => p === aPN));
if (userIdIndex >= 0 && pathParts.length > userIdIndex + 1) {
    pathParts[userIdIndex + 1];
}
```

**Pros:**
- **Simplicity:** Easy to understand and implement.
- **Performance:** Quick for short strings and will be efficient in cases where the specific structure of the URL is known.

**Cons:**
- **Rigidity:** Highly dependent on the URL structure; if the segments change or if unexpected segments are introduced, it could fail.
- **Inability to capture complex patterns:** Cannot handle variations or additional parameters effectively.

### 2. Regex Method
**Code Explanation:**
This method uses regular expressions to find matches within the URL for specific patterns related to 'students' and 'teachers', capturing the user ID directly from those patterns.

```javascript
for (let i = 0; i < userIdPathSegmentRegexps.length; i++) {
  const match = testPath.match(userIdPathSegmentRegexps[i]);
  if (Array.isArray(match) && match.length == 2 && match[1].length > 0) {
    match[1];
  }
}
```

**Pros:**
- **Flexibility:** More adaptable to changes in URL structure, as it can be designed to match various scenarios.
- **Pattern Matching:** Capable of handling more complex user ID structures or variations.

**Cons:**
- **Complexity:** Regex can be intricate and hard to read, especially for those unfamiliar with it.
- **Performance:** Regex matching can be slower, particularly with long strings or if there are many patterns to check.

### 3. String Includes Method
**Code Explanation:**
This method simply checks for the presence of the string segments ('students' and 'teachers') using the `includes` method, which also checks if a path contains the specific user ID.

```javascript
for (let i = 0; i < userIdPathSegments2.length; i++) {
  if (testPath.includes(userIdPathSegments2[i])) {
    testPath.includes(userIdPathSegments2[i] + "ad0bfc84-3d16-46c3-948c-2f8d08976fcc");
  }
}
```

**Pros:**
- **Simplicity and Readability:** Easy to understand and straightforward to implement.
- **Fast Lookups:** Generally, string search operations can be quite efficient, especially for shorter strings.

**Cons:**
- **Limited Use Case:** Just confirming the presence of a substring doesn’t yield the user ID directly; it requires additional logic to extract the user ID.

### Benchmark Results Overview
The benchmark results indicate the execution speed for each approach in terms of executions per second:

- **String includes:** 13,436,308 executions per second
- **Regex:** 3,419,045 executions per second
- **Split:** 3,291,367 executions per second

From this data, we can infer that the `includes` method performed significantly better than the other two methods in this context. The `split` and `regex` methods had similar execution speeds and were much slower than `includes`.

### Considerations
- **Use Cases:** The choice of method should depend on the specific use case, such as the expected URL structure and the complexity of the data to be extracted.
- **Maintenance:** Simpler methods like `split` or `includes` may be preferable in applications where maintainability is critical, while regex could be utilized for more complex parsing needs.

### Alternative Approaches
Other alternatives for extracting data from strings could include:
- **URL API:** The native `URL` interface (available in modern browsers) allows for easy parsing of URLs and access to different components such as pathname, query parameters, etc.
- **Third-Party Libraries:** Libraries like `query-string` or `path-to-regexp` can provide extensive utilities for URL manipulation and parsing.

By understanding the pros and cons of these methods, software engineers can choose the most appropriate approach based on their specific application requirements.

Related benchmarks:

Split vs Regex vs Contains (version: 1)

Comparing performance of: split vs regex vs string includes

Created: 3 months ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

split

regex

string includes

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated 3 months ago):