Benchmark: json stringify vs object tostring vs String

Script Preparation code:

function makeTestData() { return [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30]; }

Tests:

toString
makeTestData().toString()
JSON.stringify
JSON.stringify(makeTestData());
String
String(makeTestData());

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
toString
JSON.stringify
String

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

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

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/130.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 130 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
toString	826406.4 Ops/sec
JSON.stringify	1670504.5 Ops/sec
String	712542.1 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 JSON and benchmarking setup.

**Benchmark Definition**

The test cases aim to compare three different approaches for converting an array of numbers into a string:

1. `makeTestData().toString()`: This uses the built-in JavaScript method `toString()` on the resulting array object.
2. `JSON.stringify(makeTestData())`: This uses the `JSON.stringify()` function from the built-in JSON library to convert the array to a string.
3. `String(makeTestData())`: This attempts to use the `String()` function, which is not a standard JavaScript method for converting arrays to strings. Instead, it might be intended to apply the string conversion like in point 1.

**Library and purpose**

* `JSON.stringify()`: A built-in function that converts an object (including arrays) into a JSON string. This function can also take an optional replacer and maximum recursion depth parameters for custom conversions.
* Note: `String()` is not a standard JavaScript method. It seems like a typo or misinterpretation, as the correct conversion would be using `toString()`.

**Pros and Cons**

1. **`makeTestData().toString()`**:
	* Pros: Simple and efficient, uses built-in methods, no additional libraries required.
	* Cons: May not work correctly with complex objects, might have performance issues due to object creation.
2. **`JSON.stringify(makeTestData())`**:
	* Pros: Works with any type of data, includes support for custom replacers and recursion depth control.
	* Cons: Can be slower than `toString()` due to the overhead of serializing the entire object, may not work well with very large arrays or objects.

**Comparison**

The benchmarking setup allows users to compare these three approaches in terms of performance. The test results show that:

* `JSON.stringify(makeTestData())` is the fastest approach.
* `makeTestData().toString()` is slower than `JSON.stringify()`, but likely more efficient for simple cases.
* `String(makeTestData())` is not a standard method and might be considered invalid or an error.

**Alternative approaches**

If you want to explore alternative methods, consider:

1. Using `Array.prototype.map()` and `String.join()` to concatenate the array elements into a string: `makeTestData().map(x => x.toString()).join(' ')`
2. Implementing a custom string conversion function for arrays: `function arrayToString(arr) { return arr.map(x => x.toString()).join(' '); }`

These alternatives might offer different performance profiles or use cases, but it's essential to consider the trade-offs and ensure they meet your specific requirements.

Keep in mind that the performance differences between these approaches can be significant, especially for large arrays. Therefore, when selecting a method, consider factors like code simplicity, performance, and compatibility with different environments.

Related benchmarks:

json stringify vs object tostring vs String (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: toString vs JSON.stringify vs String

Created: 11 months ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

toString

JSON.stringify

String

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):