Benchmark: Type coercion benchmark 2

Tests:

Number +'100'
let number = +'100'
Number parseInt
let number = parseInt('100')
String "" + 100
let str = "" + 100
String String100
let str = String(100)
Number Number
let number = Number("100")
Boolean !!1
let bool = !!1
Boolean Boolean
let bool = Boolean(1)
String new String
let str = new String(100)
Number new Number
let number = new Number("100")

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
Number +'100'
Number parseInt
String "" + 100
String String100
Number Number
Boolean !!1
Boolean Boolean
String new String
Number new Number

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 29 days ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/131.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 Edg/131.0.0.0

Browser/OS: Chrome 131 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
Number +'100'	89096112.0 Ops/sec
Number parseInt	81585944.0 Ops/sec
String "" + 100	85526952.0 Ops/sec
String String100	46137152.0 Ops/sec
Number Number	74940784.0 Ops/sec
Boolean !!1	86128192.0 Ops/sec
Boolean Boolean	85591216.0 Ops/sec
String new String	79871800.0 Ops/sec
Number new Number	34674828.0 Ops/sec

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated one month ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

The benchmark defined as "Type coercion benchmark 2" is designed to measure the performance of various JavaScript approaches for type coercion, specifically converting values between different types such as strings, numbers, and booleans. Each test case evaluates a distinct method of type conversion, which helps provide insight into the efficiency and performance characteristics of each method under similar conditions.

### Test Cases and Their Explanation

1. **Number +'100'**
   - **Description**: This expression uses the unary `+` operator, which coerces the string `'100'` into the number `100`.
   - **Pros**: It's concise and typically fast in modern JavaScript engines.
   - **Cons**: It may be less readable for those unfamiliar with the unary `+`.

2. **Number parseInt('100')**
   - **Description**: This method uses `parseInt`, which converts a string to an integer, starting from the leftmost character.
   - **Pros**: It allows more control if the string might represent a non-integer value (e.g., `parseInt('10.5')` results in `10`).
   - **Cons**: Less performant compared to direct coercion methods; not ideal for floating-point numbers (`parseInt` can truncate decimal values).

3. **String "" + 100**
   - **Description**: This expression concatenates an empty string with the number `100`, converting it to a string `'100'`.
   - **Pros**: Simple and clear syntax.
   - **Cons**: May be less performant compared to unary `+`.

4. **String String(100)**
   - **Description**: This involves calling the `String` function to create a string representation of the number `100`.
   - **Pros**: Straightforward to understand; explicitly indicates intention.
   - **Cons**: May be marginally slower than direct concatenation due to function call overhead.

5. **Number Number("100")**
   - **Description**: Similar to the unary `+`, but uses the `Number` constructor for conversion.
   - **Pros**: Clearer in intention, also coerces to a number.
   - **Cons**: Slightly slower than using the unary `+` directly.

6. **Boolean !!1**
   - **Description**: The double negation converts the truthy value `1` into a boolean `true`.
   - **Pros**: Fast and efficient way to ensure a boolean value.
   - **Cons**: The syntax may confuse less experienced programmers.

7. **Boolean Boolean(1)**
   - **Description**: This uses the `Boolean` constructor to create a boolean from `1`, yielding `true`.
   - **Pros**: Clear and explicit for indicating type conversion.
   - **Cons**: Slightly less efficient than the double negation method.

8. **String new String(100)**
   - **Description**: This uses the `String` constructor to create an object wrapper for the string '100'.
   - **Pros**: Useful when needing an object rather than a primitive.
   - **Cons**: Less performant and heavier memory usage due to object creation; generally not recommended unless necessary.

9. **Number new Number("100")**
   - **Description**: This creates a number object from a string "100".
   - **Pros**: Like `new String`, it can be useful in specific contexts requiring an object.
   - **Cons**: Performance overhead when creating a number object is typically unnecessary.

### Performance Results Interpretation

The benchmark results show that the methods involving direct coercion (e.g., unary `+`, or concatenation with an empty string) performed the best, achieving high execution rates per second (over 95 million for some cases). In contrast, methods that create objects (`new String`, `new Number`) performed the worst, demonstrating significantly lower execution rates (in the low 38 million range).

### Alternative Approaches

Other alternatives for type coercion in JavaScript could include:
- **Template Literals** for string conversion: e.g., `` `${100}` `` could also be used to convert numbers to strings.
- **Using third-party libraries** like Lodash for more complex type manipulations, though for basic type coercion, native JS methods are generally sufficient.
- **Using `Number.isFinite` or `Number.isNaN`** for validation after coercion to handle edge cases more effectively.

In summary, while JavaScript offers various methods for type coercion, the choice of method can impact both performance and readability. It is beneficial for developers to consider the context and requirements of their specific use cases when selecting the most appropriate approach.

Related benchmarks:

Type coercion benchmark 2 (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: Number +'100' vs Number parseInt vs String "" + 100 vs String String100 vs Number Number vs Boolean !!1 vs Boolean Boolean vs String new String vs Number new Number

Created: one month ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

Number +'100'

Number parseInt

String "" + 100

String String100

Number Number

Boolean !!1

Boolean Boolean

String new String

Number new Number

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated one month ago):