Benchmark: indexOf() vs test() vs ===

Tests:

test()
/test/.test('test');
indexOf()
'tesr'.indexOf('test');
===
'test'==='test'

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
test()
indexOf()
===

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 2 months ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/133.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 133 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
test()	5525945.0 Ops/sec
indexOf()	22081458.0 Ops/sec
===	22068746.0 Ops/sec

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated 2 months ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

The benchmark in question compares the performance of three different methods for checking the presence of a substring within a string in JavaScript: the regular expression method using the `test()` function, the string method `indexOf()`, and strict equality using the `===` operator. Here’s a breakdown of each method, including pros and cons, and considerations for their use:

### 1. **Regular Expression: `test()`**
- **Code:** `/test/.test('test');`
- **Description:** This test uses a regular expression to check if the substring "test" exists in the string.
  
#### Pros:
- **Flexibility:** Regular expressions provide powerful pattern matching capabilities, allowing for complex matching beyond simple substring checks.
  
#### Cons:
- **Performance:** Regular expressions can be slower for simple substring checks compared to string methods due to the overhead involved in parsing and matching the pattern.
- **Complexity:** Regex can be less readable and harder for beginners or non-experts to understand, especially when patterns become complex.

### 2. **String Method: `indexOf()`**
- **Code:** `'tesr'.indexOf('test');`
- **Description:** The `indexOf()` method returns the index of the first occurrence of the specified substring ("test") in the string. If the substring is not found, it returns -1.

#### Pros:
- **Performance:** Generally faster than regex for simple substring searches because there is no pattern compilation overhead.
- **Simplicity:** The method is straightforward and easier to understand for those familiar with string operations.

#### Cons:
- **Limited Functionality:** `indexOf()` only checks for the presence of a substring; it doesn't handle complex patterns or variations without additional logic.
- **Case Sensitivity:** `indexOf()` is case-sensitive; thus, it won't match substrings with different cases without altering the case first.

### 3. **Strict Equality Operator: `===`**
- **Code:** `'test'==='test';`
- **Description:** This test checks if two strings are exactly equal.

#### Pros:
- **Simplicity and Speed:** Checking two strings for equality is very efficient and fast, usually requiring minimal computation.
- **Clarity:** This method has the highest readability and is simple, making it easy for developers to understand its intention.

#### Cons:
- **Narrow Use Case:** This method is limited to checking equality and cannot be used for substring existence. It does not offer flexibility in use cases where substring checks are needed.

### Benchmark Results Overview
In the benchmark results:
- The `indexOf()` method achieved the highest execution speed at 22,081,458 executions per second.
- The strict equality check (`===`) was very close behind at 22,068,746 executions per second.
- The regular expression method (`test()`) was significantly slower, with only 5,525,945 executions per second.

### Other Considerations
- **Context:** The choice of method may depend on the specific requirements of an application. For scenarios that require substring checks within complex strings, `test()` may be more appropriate despite its slower performance.
- **Use Cases:** If the check is simply to see if a complete string matches another, `===` is the best approach. When searching for a substring, `indexOf()` is the most efficient method unless regex patterns are required.

### Alternatives
Other alternatives for substring searching may include:
- **`includes()` method:** Introduced in ES6, `string.includes(searchString)` returns true if the substring exists, offering a more readable approach compared to `indexOf()`.
- **`String.prototype.match()`**: Returns an array of results that match a regular expression; it can be simpler than `test()` when capturing multiple occurrences. However, its performance may be comparable to or even slower than `test()` for certain operations.

### Conclusion
In summary, this benchmark provides insight into the performance of different string searching methods in JavaScript. Each has its advantages and appropriate use cases, and the choice will depend on the specific requirements of the task at hand, balancing performance with functionality and readability.

Related benchmarks:

indexOf() vs test() vs === (version: 1)

Comparing performance of: test() vs indexOf() vs ===

Created: 2 months ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

test()

indexOf()

===

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated 2 months ago):