Benchmark: simpleStringify vs JSON.stringify

Script Preparation code:

function simpleStringify(o) {
  let cache = [];
  let data = JSON.stringify(o, function(key, value) {
    if (typeof value === "object" && value !== null) {
      if (cache.indexOf(value) !== -1) {
        // Circular reference found, discard key
        return;
      }
      // Store value in our collection
      cache.push(value);
    }
    return value;
  });
  cache = null;
  return data;
}
var testData = {"bar":"foo"}

Tests:

simpleStringify
simpleStringify(testData);
JSON.stringify
JSON.stringify(testData)

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
simpleStringify
JSON.stringify

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: one year ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/116.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 116 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
simpleStringify	1796904.1 Ops/sec
JSON.stringify	3491049.5 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's dive into the explanation.

**Benchmark Purpose**

The provided JSON represents a JavaScript microbenchmark that compares two approaches for stringifying (converting) objects to strings: `simpleStringify` and `JSON.stringify`. The benchmark aims to determine which approach is faster, more efficient, or has better performance characteristics in various scenarios.

**Options Compared**

Two options are being compared:

1. **Simple Stringification (`simpleStringify`)**: This custom implementation creates a cache to store object references during stringification. When an object with a circular reference is encountered, the function discards the key-value pair by returning without adding it to the cache. This approach can optimize performance for objects with complex structures.
2. **Native `JSON.stringify()`**: The built-in `JSON.stringify()` method uses a more aggressive approach to detect and handle circular references, but it may have higher overhead due to its complex logic.

**Pros and Cons**

**Simple Stringification (`simpleStringify`)**

Pros:

* Optimized for objects with simple structures
* Can avoid unnecessary work by discarding circular reference keys
* May be faster in scenarios with frequent object creation or manipulation

Cons:

* Requires manual implementation and caching, which can lead to additional overhead
* May not handle all edge cases correctly (e.g., empty objects or null values)

**Native `JSON.stringify()`**

Pros:

* Built-in function with established performance characteristics
* Handles circular references robustly, even in complex scenarios
* Reduces developer burden by leveraging the browser's optimized logic

Cons:

* May have higher overhead due to its more aggressive approach
* Can be slower for objects with simple structures or frequent creation/mutation

**Library and Purpose**

The `JSON` object is a built-in JavaScript library that provides functions for working with JSON data. The `JSON.stringify()` method is part of this library, and it's used in the benchmark to compare its performance against the custom implementation.

**Special JS Feature/Syntax**

There doesn't seem to be any special JS feature or syntax used in this benchmark. However, it's worth noting that the use of a custom `simpleStringify` function demonstrates some advanced JavaScript concepts, such as:

* Closures (the `data` variable is accessible within the `function` scope)
* Iteration and caching mechanisms
* Custom stringification logic

**Alternatives**

If you're interested in exploring alternative approaches to stringifying objects, consider the following options:

1. **Lodash's `toJSON()`**: Lodash provides a reusable function for converting JavaScript values to JSON strings. This approach might offer better performance than native `JSON.stringify()`, but it would require importing an external library.
2. **ES6 Proxies**: You can use ES6 Proxy objects to create custom stringification behavior that adapts to different object types and structures.
3. **Custom Stringification Libraries**: There are third-party libraries available, such as `stringify-js` or `json-stringify`, that offer optimized and feature-rich stringification implementations.

When choosing an approach, consider the specific requirements of your use case, performance characteristics, and trade-offs between features like circular reference handling, caching, and overhead.

Related benchmarks:

simpleStringify vs JSON.stringify (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: simpleStringify vs JSON.stringify

Created: 7 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

simpleStringify

JSON.stringify

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):