Benchmark: JSON.stringify vs recursive for-loop

Script Preparation code:

const tree = [{
        'title': "some title",
        'channel_id': '123we',
        'options': [{
            'channel_id': 'abc',
            'image': 'http://asdasd.com/all-inclusive-block-img.jpg',
            'title': 'All-Inclusive',
            'options': [{
                'channel_id': 'dsa2',
                'title': 'Some Recommends',
                'options': [{
                    'image': 'http://www.asdasd.com',
                    'title': 'Sandals',
                    'id': '1',
                    'content': {}
                }]
            }]
        }]
    },
    {
        'title': "some title",
        'channel_id': '123we',
        'options': [{
            'channel_id': 'abc',
            'image': 'http://asdasd.com/all-inclusive-block-img.jpg',
            'title': 'All-Inclusive',
            'options': [{
                'channel_id': 'dsa2',
                'title': 'Some Recommends',
                'options': [{
                    'image': 'http://www.asdasd.com',
                    'title': 'Sandals',
                    'id': '2',
                    'content': {}
                }]
            }]
        }]
    }
];

Tests:

JSON.stringify
function findNestedObj(root, ID) { let item; JSON.stringify(root, (_, obj) => { if (obj && obj.id === ID) { item = obj; } return obj; }); return item; }; const result = findNestedObj(tree, '2');
recursive for-loop
function findNestedObj(root, ID) { let item; for (let i = 0; i < root.length && !item; i += 1) { if (root[i].id === ID) { item = root[i]; return item; } if (root[i].options) { item = findNestedObj(root[i].options, ID); if (item) return item; } } return item; }; const result = findNestedObj(tree, '2');

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
JSON.stringify
recursive for-loop

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 7 days ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/131.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 131 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
JSON.stringify	473245.9 Ops/sec
recursive for-loop	13535093.0 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

The benchmark compares two different approaches for searching for a nested object within a complex JavaScript data structure: using `JSON.stringify` and a recursive for-loop.

### Approaches Compared:

1. **JSON.stringify Approach:**
   - **Definition**: This method leverages `JSON.stringify` with a custom replacer function. The replacer function checks each object being serialized to see if it matches a specified `ID`. If it finds a match, it saves the object in a variable and continues serializing.
   - **Pros**:
     - Concise code, as `JSON.stringify` abstracts a lot of the details of traversing the object.
     - Utilizes built-in serialization methods which might appeal to developers familiar with JSON handling.
   - **Cons**:
     - Performance overhead due to the stringification process, as it converts the entire object tree into a JSON string, even when only searching for a specific object.
     - Involves unnecessary computation of string representation, which can be inefficient for large data structures or frequent searches.
     - Can introduce side effects if there are cyclical references in the data structure since `JSON.stringify` does not handle them well.

2. **Recursive For-Loop Approach:**
   - **Definition**: This method manually traverses the data structure using a recursive function. It examines each node of the tree to see if it contains the specified `ID`. If it does, it returns that node; if it has nested children, it continues searching recursively.
   - **Pros**:
     - Generally more efficient in terms of execution, especially for deep trees or multiple searches, as it does not involve the overhead of string conversion.
     - More direct control over the traversal process, allowing for optimizations and adaptations as necessary.
     - No unwanted side effects related to serialization; it simply traverses the object and extracts the needed information.
   - **Cons**:
     - Slightly more verbose code, which might be off-putting for some developers.
     - Recursive calls can lead to a stack overflow if the data structure is significantly deep (though this can be managed through techniques such as iteration).

### Results Summary:
The benchmark results showed that the **recursive for-loop** approach outperformed the **JSON.stringify** approach significantly, executing around 8.5 million times per second compared to approximately 375,000 times per second for the stringification method.

### Considerations:
- When choosing between these two methods, it is essential to consider the size and depth of the data structure, as well as the frequency of the search operations. 
- The recursive approach is typically preferred for performance concerns, particularly when working with deeply nested structures or performing repetitive searches.

### Alternatives:
- **Iterative Approaches**: Instead of a recursive function, developers can also implement an iterative approach using stacks or queues to traverse the nested structure. This can help avoid stack overflow errors caused by deep recursion.
- **Data Structures**: Depending on the application, utilizing different data structures such as trees, graphs, or dictionaries might offer more efficient searching capabilities.
- **Search Libraries**: Utilizing libraries such as Lodash can provide optimized functions for deep searches, allowing for reusable and tested solutions without having to implement custom traversal logic.

### Conclusion:
Overall, understanding the trade-offs between using built-in methods like `JSON.stringify` and writing custom algorithms such as the recursive for-loop is crucial for optimizing performance in JavaScript applications, especially when dealing with complex or nested data structures.

Related benchmarks:

JSON.stringify vs recursive for-loop (version: 1)

Comparing performance of: JSON.stringify vs recursive for-loop

Created: one month ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

JSON.stringify

recursive for-loop

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):