Benchmark: Intl.Collator.compare() vs localeCompare() vs toLowercase()

Script Preparation code:

var a = "FOO BAR";
var b = "foo bar";

var options = {
  sensitivity: 'base'
};

var collator = new Intl.Collator(undefined, options);

Tests:

localeCompare()
a.localeCompare(b, undefined, options) === 0
Intl.Collator.compare()
collator.compare(a, b) === 0
toLowerCase()
a.toLowerCase() === b.toLowerCase()

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
localeCompare()
Intl.Collator.compare()
toLowerCase()

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 8 days ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/131.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 131 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
localeCompare()	311591.9 Ops/sec
Intl.Collator.compare()	21195686.0 Ops/sec
toLowerCase()	83821616.0 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's break down the provided benchmark and its test cases.

**Benchmark Definition**

The benchmark measures the performance of three string comparison methods in JavaScript: `Intl.Collator.compare()`, `localeCompare()`, and `toLowerCase()`.

**Script Preparation Code**

The script prepares two strings, `a` and `b`, with different casing (`FOO BAR` and "foo bar"), and sets up an options object for the `Intl.Collator.compare()` method, specifying `sensitivity: 'base'`. This option controls how the collator compares strings.

**Html Preparation Code**

There is no HTML preparation code provided, which means that the benchmark does not involve rendering any HTML content or interacting with the DOM.

**Test Cases**

The test cases compare the performance of each string comparison method:

1. `localeCompare()`: Measures the time it takes to compare two strings using the `localeCompare()` method.
2. `Intl.Collator.compare()`: Measures the time it takes to compare two strings using the `Intl.Collator.compare()` method with the specified options.
3. `toLowerCase()`: Measures the time it takes to convert both strings to lowercase and then compare them.

**Library**

The `Intl.Collator` library is used in the benchmark for the `Intl.Collator.compare()` test case. The `Intl.Collator` library provides a set of classes that allow you to perform locale-sensitive string comparisons. In this case, it's used to compare strings based on their casing and language.

**Special JS Feature or Syntax**

None of the test cases use any special JavaScript features or syntax beyond what is standard in modern JavaScript (ES6+). However, it's worth noting that `Intl.Collator` is a part of the ECMAScript Internationalization API, which provides support for locale-specific string comparisons.

**Pros and Cons of each approach**

Here are some pros and cons of each approach:

1. **localeCompare()**: This method is generally fast and efficient, but it can be sensitive to the order of characters in the strings (e.g., "café" and "acef") or locale-specific rules for case conversion.
	* Pros: Fast, widely supported, easy to use.
	* Cons: May not work as expected with certain locale settings or string formats.
2. **Intl.Collator.compare()**: This method provides more control over the comparison process, including sensitivity options and support for multiple locales.
	* Pros: More flexible, supports multiple locales, can handle special cases like case folding.
	* Cons: May be slower than `localeCompare()` due to additional processing steps.
3. **toLowerCase()**: This method converts both strings to lowercase before comparing them, which can affect the results if the casing of the original strings is important.
	* Pros: Simple, easy to understand.
	* Cons: Can lead to incorrect results if casing matters, may be slower than `localeCompare()` or `Intl.Collator.compare()`.

**Other alternatives**

Some alternative string comparison methods in JavaScript include:

1. **String.prototype.localeCompare()**: Similar to the `localeCompare()` method, but called as a method on strings instead of as a standalone function.
2. **String.prototype.normalize() + String.prototype.compareTo()**: This approach normalizes both input strings and then compares them using the `compareTo()` method, which is similar to `Intl.Collator.compare()`.
3. **Custom implementation using Unicode code points**: For cases where custom comparison logic is required, implementing a custom string comparison function using Unicode code points can be an alternative.

Keep in mind that these alternatives may have different trade-offs in terms of performance, complexity, and compatibility with various browsers or platforms.

Related benchmarks:

Intl.Collator.compare() vs localeCompare() vs toLowercase() (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: localeCompare() vs Intl.Collator.compare() vs toLowerCase()

Created: 2 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

localeCompare()

Intl.Collator.compare()

toLowerCase()

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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