Benchmark: Compare comparison with null or undefined (extended)

Compare comparison with null or undefined (extended) (version: 1)

Comparing performance of: value == null vs value == undefined vs value === null vs value === undefined vs value === null || value === undefined vs _.isNil(value) vs value != null vs value != undefined vs value !== null vs value !== undefined vs value !== null && value !== undefined vs !_.isNil(value) vs typeof value == undefined vs typeof value === undefined

Created: 20 days ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

HTML Preparation code:

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/lodash.js/4.17.10/lodash.min.js"></script>

Script Preparation code:

var value = { a: 123 }

Tests:

value == null
value == null
value == undefined
value == undefined
value === null
value === null
value === undefined
value === undefined
value === null || value === undefined
value === null || value === undefined
_.isNil(value)
_.isNil(value)
value != null
value != null
value != undefined
value != undefined
value !== null
value !== null
value !== undefined
value !== undefined
value !== null && value !== undefined
value !== null && value !== undefined
!_.isNil(value)
!_.isNil(value)
typeof value == undefined
typeof value == 'undefined'
typeof value === undefined
typeof value === 'undefined'

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
value == null
value == undefined
value === null
value === undefined
value === null \|\| value === undefined
_.isNil(value)
value != null
value != undefined
value !== null
value !== undefined
value !== null && value !== undefined
!_.isNil(value)
typeof value == undefined
typeof value === undefined

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 20 days 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
value == null	56480736.0 Ops/sec
value == undefined	48415744.0 Ops/sec
value === null	56071436.0 Ops/sec
value === undefined	56608396.0 Ops/sec
value === null \|\| value === undefined	52463556.0 Ops/sec
_.isNil(value)	30789712.0 Ops/sec
value != null	64812236.0 Ops/sec
value != undefined	44734152.0 Ops/sec
value !== null	56004448.0 Ops/sec
value !== undefined	49211500.0 Ops/sec
value !== null && value !== undefined	42629112.0 Ops/sec
!_.isNil(value)	32653414.0 Ops/sec
typeof value == undefined	62180620.0 Ops/sec
typeof value === undefined	55548980.0 Ops/sec

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated 20 days ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

This benchmark compares different approaches to checking if a value is either `null` or `undefined` in JavaScript. The tests reflect various syntactic styles and methodologies used in JavaScript for these comparisons, particularly focusing on the use of equality (`==`, `===`, `!=`, `!==`) and utility functions from libraries, namely Lodash.

### Options Being Compared

1. **Equality Checks**:
   - `value == null` and `value == undefined`: Tests for loose equality. Here, the value can be either `null` or `undefined`.
   - `value === null` and `value === undefined`: Tests for strict equality, meaning the value must exactly match `null` or `undefined`.
   - `value === null || value === undefined`: Combines strict checks to see if the value is either `null` or `undefined`.
   - `value != null` and `value != undefined`: Tests for loose inequality. If the value is not equal to `null` or `undefined`, the expression evaluates to `true`.
   - `value !== null` and `value !== undefined`: Tests for strict inequality. The value must not be precisely `null` or `undefined`.

2. **Using Lodash**:
   - `_.isNil(value)`: A Lodash utility that checks if a value is `null` or `undefined`.
   - `!_.isNil(value)`: Checks if a value is not `null` or `undefined`.

3. **Type Checking**:
   - `typeof value == 'undefined'`: Checks if the type of `value` is `'undefined'`, which is a reliable way to check for `undefined`.
   - `typeof value === 'undefined'`: A stricter version that ensures `typeof` returns a string matching `'undefined'`.

### Performance Results

Based on the results, the following are the most performant and least performant options (measured in `ExecutionsPerSecond`):

- **Most Efficient**:
  - `value != null`: Performs the best, likely due to the simplicity of checking for null-like values in the context of loose equality.
  - `typeof value == 'undefined'`: Also performs well, utilizing the efficiency of the `typeof` operator.

- **Moderate Efficiency**:
  - `value === undefined`: This is efficient but slightly slower than the loose checks.
  - `value === null`: Additionally efficient but slower than the previous two.

- **Least Efficient**:
  - `_.isNil(value)`: Testing with a library incurs overhead, making it slower than direct checks.
  - `!_.isNil(value)`: Similarly, checking against a utility function is less efficient.

### Pros and Cons of Different Approaches

1. **Loose vs. Strict Equality**:
   - **Loose Equality (`==`)**:
     - **Pros**: More concise syntax when checking for both `null` and `undefined`.
     - **Cons**: Potentially leads to unexpected behavior due to type coercion, making debugging difficult.
   - **Strict Equality (`===`)**:
     - **Pros**: Provides clearer and more predictable results, reducing bugs related to type coercion.
     - **Cons**: Requires more verbal checks (`null && undefined`).

2. **Lodash Utility**:
   - **Pros**: Offers a clear and semantically meaningful way to check values. It abstracts the logic and potentially promotes code readability.
   - **Cons**: Introduces overhead by requiring an additional library, which may not be justifiable for simple checks.

3. **Type Checking**:
   - **Pros**: Very reliable, as it uses the JavaScript language feature designed to determine a variable's type.
   - **Cons**: Slightly verbose compared to direct equality checks.

### Other Considerations

- **Browser Performance**: Results may vary across different browsers and environments, leading to the importance of context when selecting an approach.
- **Readability vs. Efficiency**: While optimizing for performance is important, developers must balance that with code readability and maintainability.
- **Alternatives**: Other alternatives to check for `null` or `undefined` include using `if (value == null)` directly in conditional statements or encapsulating logic in functions for reusability.
- **Future-proof Practices**: With the evolution of JavaScript, adopting modern language features and best practices (like using strict equality) typically leads to better long-term code quality.

In conclusion, the choice of method boils down to the specific needs of your project, balancing performance, readability, type safety, and the presence of libraries like Lodash to enhance code expressiveness while considering their trade-offs.

Related benchmarks:

Compare comparison with null or undefined (extended) (version: 1)

Created: 20 days ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

value == null

value == undefined

value === null

value === undefined

value === null || value === undefined

_.isNil(value)

value != null

value != undefined

value !== null

value !== undefined

value !== null && value !== undefined

!_.isNil(value)

typeof value == undefined

typeof value === undefined

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated 20 days ago):