Benchmark: Lodash.get vs Property dot notation for nested properties

HTML Preparation code:

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/lodash/4.16.0/lodash.min.js"></script>

Script Preparation code:

var data = { 
    "stuff": {
        "onetype": [
            {"id":1,"name":"John Doe"},
            {"id":2,"name":"Don Joeh"}
        ],
        "othertype": {"id":2,"company":"ACME"}
    }, 
    "otherstuff": {
        "thing": [[1,42],[2,2]]
     }
}

Tests:

Lodash get
_.get(data, 'stuff.onetype.id');
Native
data.stuff.onetype.id

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
Lodash get
Native

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated 29 days ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's break down the provided benchmark and its various components.

**Benchmark Definition JSON**

The benchmark definition represents a test case that compares two approaches to access nested properties in JavaScript: Lodash's `_.get` function and native property dot notation (also known as "dot notation").

*   The **Name** field specifies the name of the benchmark, which is "Lodash.get vs Property dot notation for nested properties".
*   The **Description** field is empty, indicating that no additional description or context is provided.
*   The **Script Preparation Code** section defines a JavaScript object `data` with multiple nested levels. This object will be used as the input data for both benchmark cases.
*   The **Html Preparation Code** specifies an HTML link to load Lodash's library from a CDN, which will make its functions available for use in the benchmark.

**Individual Test Cases**

There are two test cases defined:

1.  **Lodash get**: This test case uses the `_.get` function from Lodash to access a nested property within the `data` object.
    *   The **Benchmark Definition** string represents the code that will be executed by this test case: `"_.get(data, 'stuff.onetype.id');"`.
2.  **Native**: This test case uses native JavaScript's dot notation (i.e., "property chaining") to access a nested property within the `data` object.
    *   The **Benchmark Definition** string represents the code that will be executed by this test case: `"data.stuff.onetype.id"`.

Now, let's discuss the pros and cons of these approaches:

### Lodash _.get

Pros:
*   Robustness: Lodash provides a robust implementation with built-in support for handling cases like null or undefined inputs, as well as handling edge cases such as accessing properties that do not exist in the input object.
*   Consistency: Using `_.get` ensures consistent behavior across different JavaScript environments and versions.

Cons:
*   Additional overhead: Since Lodash is a separate library, loading its functions may introduce some additional overhead compared to native implementations.
*   Dependence on external libraries: The benchmark requires an internet connection to load the necessary Lodash library, which can be considered a disadvantage in terms of independence.

### Native Property Dot Notation

Pros:
*   Lightweight and independent: Native JavaScript property dot notation is inherently lightweight, as it only uses built-in language features.
*   No external dependencies: This approach relies solely on native language features, eliminating the need to load an external library.

Cons:
*   Potential issues with edge cases: The native implementation may fail or behave unexpectedly for certain inputs (e.g., null or undefined values) that are not handled explicitly.
*   Consistency and robustness can vary across browsers and JavaScript versions.

**Considerations**

1.  **Browser support**: Since the benchmark involves accessing nested properties in a JavaScript object, all major web browsers should be able to handle this test case without issues. However, if you're concerned about specific edge cases or potential browser quirks, you may need to add additional checks.
2.  **Lodash library**: The benchmark relies on loading Lodash's library from a CDN. This can impact the test results if users do not have an active internet connection or if the CDN is unavailable.

**Alternative approaches**

If you want to explore alternative methods for comparing these two approaches, consider the following options:

*   Use a static analysis tool like ESLint or JSHint to analyze code coverage and detect potential issues with your Lodash implementation.
*   Compare the optimized native implementations of popular JavaScript engines like V8 (used in Google Chrome) or SpiderMonkey (used in Mozilla Firefox).
*   Implement additional test cases that cover different input scenarios, such as edge cases like accessing properties on null or undefined values.

These alternatives can help you gain a deeper understanding of performance characteristics and optimization techniques for your specific use case.

Latest run results:

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

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/116.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 116 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
Lodash get	2782965.2 Ops/sec
Native	15418602.0 Ops/sec

Related benchmarks:

Lodash.get vs Property dot notation for nested properties (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: Lodash get vs Native

Created: 5 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

Lodash get

Native

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated 29 days ago):