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

Tests:

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

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

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

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

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Test name	Executions per second
test()	5316754.5 Ops/sec
indexOf()	20605092.0 Ops/sec
===	21581680.0 Ops/sec
localeCompare()	2233211.5 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

The provided benchmark compares four different methods for evaluating string equality or checking the presence of a substring in JavaScript. Here’s a breakdown of each method, their associated pros and cons, and other considerations:

### Test Cases Evaluated:

1. **`test()`**
   - **Definition:** `/test/.test('test');`
   - **Purpose:** This method utilizes a regular expression to test if a certain pattern (in this case, the string "test") exists within a target string.
   - **Pros:** 
     - Flexible: Regular expressions can match complex patterns, not just fixed strings.
   - **Cons:** 
     - Performance Overhead: For simple substring checks, regular expressions can be slower due to the additional parsing and processing overhead involved.
  
2. **`indexOf()`**
   - **Definition:** `'tesr'.indexOf('test');`
   - **Purpose:** This method checks for the presence of a substring within a string and returns the index of the first occurrence or -1 if not found.
   - **Pros:** 
     - Straightforward: Easy to understand and widely used.
     - Good Performance: Generally performs well for simple substring checks.
   - **Cons:** 
     - Limited to searching for static substrings; does not offer pattern matching like regular expressions.
  
3. **`===` (Strict Equality)**
   - **Definition:** `'test' === 'test'`
   - **Purpose:** This operator checks if two values are strictly equal in both value and type (here comparing two string literals).
   - **Pros:** 
     - Fast: Direct comparison of values is efficient.
     - Type-Safe: Ensures both value and type must match.
   - **Cons:** 
     - Not applicable for substring search; only useful for checking if two values are exactly the same.
  
4. **`localeCompare()`**
   - **Definition:** `'test'.localeCompare('test');`
   - **Purpose:** This method compares two strings in the current locale and returns a number indicating whether one string comes before, after, or is the same as the other.
   - **Pros:** 
     - Locale-Sensitive: Useful in situations where string comparison needs to take locale into account.
   - **Cons:** 
     - Slower than simple equality checks or substring searches because it considers locale rules.
     - Overhead for its intended complexity when only simple equality is needed.

### Results Overview:
The benchmark results indicate the executions per second for each method when tested on the same environment:

- **`===`**: 21,581,680 executions/second
- **`indexOf()`**: 20,605,092 executions/second
- **`test()`**: 5,316,754.5 executions/second
- **`localeCompare()`**: 2,233,211.5 executions/second

### Summary:
- The strict equality operator (`===`) significantly outperforms the other methods in terms of speed, maximizing efficiency for checking if two strings are identical.
- The `indexOf()` method is also faster than both `test()` and `localeCompare()`, making it a solid choice for checking the presence of substrings.
- The `test()` method is versatile but introduces more overhead, making it less suitable for simple substring checks.
- The `localeCompare()` method is best for when internationalization considerations come into play but is the slowest option.

### Alternatives:
- One alternative for pattern matching could be the use of the `String.includes()` method for substring checks, which is often more readable than `indexOf()` since it conveys intent more clearly (returns true/false for substring presence).
- For regular expression matching, alternatives such as `String.match()` could also be considered for more complex matching scenarios, providing additional flexibility.
  
This benchmark provides insights particularly valuable when considering performance trade-offs in string handling across various applications in JavaScript, and guides engineers in selecting the most appropriate method according to their specific needs.

Related benchmarks:

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

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

Created: 2 months ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

test()

indexOf()

===

localeCompare()

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):