Benchmark: Date.parse vs getTime()

Script Preparation code:

var date = new Date();

Tests:

getTime()
var mtime = date.getTime();
Date.parse()
var mtime = Date.parse(date);

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
getTime()
Date.parse()

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated 25 days ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's break down the provided JSON and explore what's being tested in the benchmark.

**Benchmark Definition**

The benchmark defines two different approaches to measure the performance of `getTime()` and `Date.parse()`. The script preparation code is identical for both tests: `var date = new Date();`.

The HTML preparation code is also identical, which means that there are no additional HTML elements being created or manipulated by these tests.

**Individual Test Cases**

There are two test cases:

1. **"getTime()"**
	* Benchmark Definition: `var mtime = date.getTime();`
	* This test case simply measures the execution time of calling `getTime()` on a new `Date` object.
2. **"Date.parse()"**
	* Benchmark Definition: `var mtime = Date.parse(date);`
	* This test case measures the execution time of calling `Date.parse()` with a string argument, which is converted to a `Date` object.

**Pros and Cons**

* **getTime()**: This approach is simple and directly tests the `getTime()` method. However, it might not accurately represent real-world usage, as most JavaScript code doesn't call `getTime()` explicitly.
	+ Pros: Easy to understand and implement.
	+ Cons: May not reflect real-world scenarios.
* **Date.parse():** This approach tests a more common use case for `Date.parse()`, which is often used to parse strings in a specific format. However, it might be slower due to the additional parsing step.
	+ Pros: More representative of real-world usage.
	+ Cons: Might introduce unnecessary overhead.

**Library and Purpose**

There is no explicit library being used in these benchmark tests. The `Date` object and its methods (`getTime()` and `Date.parse()`) are part of the JavaScript Standard Library, which comes bundled with most browsers.

**Special JS Features or Syntax**

None of these test cases use any special JavaScript features or syntax that would require additional explanation.

**Other Alternatives**

If you were to create a similar benchmark for other methods on the `Date` object, such as `toLocaleString()` or `toLocaleDateString()`, you might want to consider using different approaches:

* For `toLocaleString()`, you could test how long it takes to format a date string in a specific locale.
* For `toLocaleDateString()`, you could test how long it takes to format a date string according to the user's local formatting preferences.

For more complex benchmarks, you might want to consider using additional libraries or frameworks that provide more advanced timing and measurement capabilities.

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 10 months ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 120 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
getTime()	35926236.0 Ops/sec
Date.parse()	1207483.5 Ops/sec

Related benchmarks:

Date.parse vs getTime() (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: getTime() vs Date.parse()

Created: 10 months ago by: Registered User

Jump to the latest result

getTime()

Date.parse()

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated 25 days ago):