Benchmark: eval vs new Function vs native

Script Preparation code:

var func = new Function("return 2 * 3");

Tests:

eval
eval("2 * 3");
new Function
func();
native
2 * 3

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
eval
new Function
native

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/111.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 111 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
eval	7055051.5 Ops/sec
new Function	29085840.0 Ops/sec
native	1022633664.0 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's break down the provided benchmark and explain what is being tested.

**Benchmark Overview**

The benchmark measures the performance of three different approaches to perform arithmetic operations:

1. `native`: This approach uses the built-in JavaScript operator for multiplication (`*`).
2. `new Function`: This approach creates a new function using the `Function` constructor, which takes a string literal as its argument. The function returns the result of the expression inside the quotes.
3. `eval`: This approach uses the `eval` function to execute a string containing a JavaScript expression.

**Options Compared**

The benchmark compares the performance of these three approaches:

* **Native**: Uses built-in JavaScript operator for multiplication (`*`)
* **New Function**: Creates a new function using the `Function` constructor and executes it
* **Eval**: Uses the `eval` function to execute a string containing a JavaScript expression

**Pros and Cons**

Here are some pros and cons of each approach:

* **Native**:
	+ Pros: Fastest, most efficient, and widely supported.
	+ Cons: Can be fragile if not properly optimized by browsers.
* **New Function**:
	+ Pros: Allows for more control over the function's behavior and can be used to avoid caching issues with `eval`.
	+ Cons: Creates a new function object every time it is called, which can lead to performance overhead due to function creation and garbage collection.
* **Eval**:
	+ Pros: Can execute arbitrary JavaScript code, making it useful for complex calculations or dynamic evaluation of expressions.
	+ Cons: Can be slower than native operations due to the overhead of parsing and executing user-provided code. Additionally, `eval` can pose security risks if used with untrusted input.

**Library and Purpose**

The `Function` constructor is a built-in JavaScript function that creates a new function object from a string literal. It's often used for dynamic function creation or when you need to evaluate a piece of code as a function.

**Special JS Feature/Syntax**

There are no special features or syntaxes being tested in this benchmark, but it's worth noting that the `new Function` approach uses the fact that functions can be created from strings, which is a feature introduced in ECMAScript 5 (ES5).

**Alternatives**

If you wanted to write your own microbenchmarking tool, some alternatives include:

* Using a library like ` benchmarks.js` or `js-benchmark`, which provide a more structured approach to benchmarking and can handle edge cases like browser-specific features.
* Implementing your own benchmarking loop using Node.js's `process` object or a framework like ` Jest`.
* Utilizing existing benchmarking frameworks specifically designed for JavaScript, such as ` benchmarkist`.

In summary, the provided benchmark measures the performance of three different approaches to perform arithmetic operations: native, new Function, and eval. It highlights the trade-offs between these approaches in terms of performance, efficiency, and security.

Related benchmarks:

eval vs new Function vs native (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: eval vs new Function vs native

Created: one year ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

eval

new Function

native

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):