Benchmark: Template Literal vs String

Script Preparation code:

var n = 1000;

Tests:

Template Literal
var text = `${n}`;
Stringify number
var text = String(n);

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
Template Literal
Stringify number

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

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

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/132.0.6834.84 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 132 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
Template Literal	120808768.0 Ops/sec
Stringify number	88357560.0 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

The benchmark defined in the provided JSON is focused on comparing two different methods for converting a number into a string in JavaScript: using a template literal and using the `String` function. Here's a detailed explanation of the benchmark, including the options compared, pros and cons of each method, and other considerations.

### Methods Being Compared

1. **Template Literal**: 
   - **Benchmark Definition**: `var text = `${n}`;`
   - **Test Name**: "Template Literal"
   - **Description**: This approach uses a template literal, which is a modern feature in JavaScript that allows for embedding expressions within a string using backticks (`` ` ``). Here, the number `n` is converted to a string by embedding it directly into the template literal.

2. **Stringify Number**:
   - **Benchmark Definition**: `var text = String(n);`
   - **Test Name**: "Stringify number"
   - **Description**: This method calls the standard JavaScript `String` function to convert the number `n` into a string explicitly.

### Performance Results

According to the latest benchmark results:
- The "Template Literal" method has an execution speed of approximately 120,808,768 executions per second.
- The "Stringify number" method has a speed of about 88,357,560 executions per second.
  
From the above results, it's clear that using template literals is significantly faster than the `String` function for this particular benchmark.

### Pros and Cons

#### Template Literal
**Pros**:
- **Higher Performance**: As shown in the results, template literals have superior performance for this conversion task.
- **Simplicity**: Syntax is clean and simple for embedding variables directly in strings.
- **Versatility**: Can be used for more complex string manipulations, including multi-line strings and expressions.

**Cons**:
- **Browser Support**: Template literals were introduced in ES6 (ECMAScript 2015). Older browsers may not support them.

#### Stringify Number
**Pros**:
- **Compatibility**: The `String` function is well-accepted across all JavaScript environments and versions, making it safe for use in legacy systems.
- **Explicit Intent**: Calling `String(n)` clearly indicates the intention of string conversion.

**Cons**:
- **Lower Performance**: As demonstrated by the benchmark results, this approach is slower than using template literals.
- **Verbosity**: While clear, the explicit call can feel more verbose compared to embedding the variable in a template literal.

### Other Considerations

- **Use Cases**: For most simple cases of converting numbers to strings, the choice between the two can come down to performance, especially in scenarios where this operation may be executed numerous times. If performance is desired, template literals could be preferred.
- **Future-proofing**: Given the significant performance benefits and clear readability of template literals, developers may want to adopt this approach as standard practice when working in environments that support ES6 or later.

### Alternatives

Besides these two methods, there are other alternatives for converting a number to a string in JavaScript:

- **Concatenation**: Using concatenation with an empty string (e.g., `var text = n + '';`). This is a commonly used method that is simple and performant but may be less clear in intent to those unfamiliar.
  
- **Number.prototype.toString()**: Using the `toString` method of the Number object (e.g., `var text = n.toString();`). This is a good option as well, providing clear intent and generally good performance but is marginally slower than the other methods tested.

In summary, the benchmark effectively showcases the differences in performance between template literals and the `String` function in converting numbers to strings. The results favor template literals, particularly when execution speed is critical. Other options exist but carry their own trade-offs in readability and compatibility.

Related benchmarks:

Template Literal vs String (version: 1)

Comparing performance of: Template Literal vs Stringify number

Created: 3 months ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

Template Literal

Stringify number

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):