Benchmark: str.match vs str.split vs deconstruction

Script Preparation code:

string = 'This is a benchmark to test if matching a regex is faster that splitting a string';
regex = /./gi;

Tests:

String.split
const result = string.split('');
Regex.match
const result = string.match(regex);
Deconstruction
const result = [...string];

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
String.split
Regex.match
Deconstruction

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

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

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 120 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
String.split	4785909.5 Ops/sec
Regex.match	365508.0 Ops/sec
Deconstruction	416354.1 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

**Benchmark Overview**

The provided benchmark is designed to compare the performance of three different approaches for string manipulation in JavaScript:

1. `String.split()`
2. Regular expression matching (`String.match()` with a regex pattern)
3. Deconstruction (using the spread operator `...`)

The benchmark aims to measure which approach is faster when splitting a string into an array.

**Approach Comparison**

### 1. `String.split()`:

* This method splits a string into an array of substrings, using a specified separator (in this case, an empty string `''`). The resulting array contains the individual words or tokens from the original string.
* **Pros**: Simple and straightforward to implement. It's also a widely supported method in JavaScript.
* **Cons**: Can be slower than other methods when dealing with large strings or complex separators.

### 2. Regular Expression Matching (`String.match()`):

* This method uses a regex pattern to search for a match in the string and returns an array containing the matched text(s) if found, or `null` otherwise.
* **Pros**: Can be faster than `String.split()` when dealing with regular expressions, especially for complex patterns. It also provides additional features like capturing groups and flags (e.g., global, multiline).
* **Cons**: Requires a regex pattern to be defined, which can add complexity and overhead. Also, it may not always produce the desired results if the pattern is too specific.

### 3. Deconstruction (`...`):

* This method uses the spread operator `...` to create an array from the elements of an iterable object (in this case, a string). It's similar to `String.split()` but can be more efficient for large strings.
* **Pros**: Can be faster than `String.split()` and regular expression matching. It also provides a concise way to split a string into an array.
* **Cons**: Not as widely supported as other methods in older JavaScript versions (prior to ECMAScript 2015). May not work as expected if the string contains null or undefined characters.

**Library: None**

The benchmark does not use any external libraries. The `String.match()` method uses the built-in RegExp object, while `String.split()` and deconstruction use the native String and Array types, respectively.

**Special JS Feature/Syntax: None**

There are no special JavaScript features or syntax used in this benchmark that require explanation.

**Alternative Approaches**

Other alternatives to compare could be:

* Using a different separator (e.g., comma `,`, semicolon `;`) with `String.split()`.
* Using a regex pattern with capturing groups and flags (`String.match()`).
* Using a library like Lodash or Ramda for string manipulation.
* Comparing the performance of other splitting methods, such as using `Array.prototype.reduce()` or `Array.prototype.forEach()`.

However, these alternatives would require additional setup and modifications to the benchmark code to ensure accurate results.

Related benchmarks:

str.match vs str.split vs deconstruction (version: 0)

Test String.match with regex against String.split with string and string deconstruction. We are splitting a string at the spaces.

Comparing performance of: String.split vs Regex.match vs Deconstruction

Created: one year ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

String.split

Regex.match

Deconstruction

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):