Benchmark: math pow vs multiply **

Tests:

pow
var x = Math.pow(54,2);
mult
var y = 54 ** 2

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
pow
mult

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated one month ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

I'd be happy to explain the benchmark being tested on MeasureThat.net.

**Benchmark Overview**

The test case compares two approaches for calculating the square of a number: `Math.pow(54, 2)` and `54 ** 2`. Both methods are designed to achieve the same result, but they may have different performance characteristics.

**Options Compared**

There are two options being compared:

1. `Math.pow(54, 2)`: This method uses the `pow()` function from the Math library in JavaScript. The `pow()` function raises a number to a given power and returns the result.
2. `54 ** 2`: This is an exponentiation operator, which is also known as a unary operator. It's a shorthand way of writing `(x) => x ** 2`, which calculates the square of a number.

**Pros and Cons**

**Math.pow()**

Pros:

* Well-defined in the specification
* Typically faster than exponentiation operators (although this may not be noticeable for small numbers)
* Can be used with negative numbers or fractional exponents

Cons:

* May have overhead due to function call
* May not be as efficient as a simple operator

**Exponentiation Operator (`**`)**

Pros:

* Fast and lightweight
* Often faster than `Math.pow()`
* More concise and readable

Cons:

* Less well-defined in the specification, which may lead to inconsistent behavior across browsers or versions
* Only works with positive numbers (for negative numbers, you need to use a workaround)

**Library Used**

In this benchmark, the Math library is used for both `Math.pow()` and exponentiation operators.

**Special JavaScript Features or Syntax**

The test case uses exponentiation operators (`**`), which are a shorthand way of writing `(x) => x ** 2`. This syntax was introduced in ECMAScript 2015 (ES6).

**Other Alternatives**

If you want to calculate the square of a number, other approaches include:

* Using a simple loop: `for (var i = 0; i < 2; i++) { result += x * x; }`
* Using a binary exponentiation algorithm
* Using a specialized library or function for fast exponentiation

Keep in mind that these alternatives may have different performance characteristics and trade-offs compared to the options being tested in this benchmark.

**Benchmark Preparation Code**

The script preparation code is not provided, but it's likely that the tests are set up to execute both `Math.pow()` and the exponentiation operator (`**`) on a fixed input value (54) multiple times, and then compare the results.

Latest run results:

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

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/104.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 104 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
pow	8877107.0 Ops/sec
mult	975996736.0 Ops/sec

Related benchmarks:

math pow vs multiply ** (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: pow vs mult

Created: 3 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

pow

mult

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated one month ago):