Benchmark: Return true vs return;

Script Preparation code:

var nullFunc = function() { return null; }
var undefinedFunc = function() { return; }

Tests:

nullFunc
nullFunc();
undefinedFunc
undefinedFunc();

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
nullFunc
undefinedFunc

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated one month ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

I'd be happy to explain the benchmark and its various components.

**What is being tested?**

The provided JSON represents a JavaScript microbenchmark test case named "Return true vs return;". This test case compares two simple functions: one that returns `null` and another that simply returns without an expression (which would also evaluate to `undefined`, but this is not explicitly checked in the benchmark).

**Options being compared**

The benchmark is comparing two different approaches:

1. **Returning `null`**: The first function, `nullFunc`, returns `null`. This might seem like a simple operation, but it can be optimized or handled differently by JavaScript engines.
2. **No return statement**: The second function, `undefinedFunc`, does not have an explicit return statement. In JavaScript, the absence of a return statement means the function will implicitly return `undefined`.

**Pros and cons of each approach**

* **Returning `null`**:
	+ Pros: Explicitly returns a value, which might be more predictable or desirable in some contexts.
	+ Cons: May be optimized away by the JavaScript engine, especially if there's no use for the returned value. Additionally, returning `null` can lead to null pointer exceptions or other issues when used as a function return value.
* **No return statement**:
	+ Pros: Can be optimized away by the JavaScript engine, reducing memory usage and potentially improving performance. Also, it might be seen as a valid way to handle an undefined result in some contexts.
	+ Cons: May lead to unexpected behavior or errors when used in certain situations.

**Library usage**

There is no explicit library mentioned in the provided JSON. However, if we consider the `var nullFunc = function() { return null; }` and `var undefinedFunc = function() { return; }` lines, they imply that JavaScript functions are being tested. The presence of a `function()` wrapper is not unusual for testing purposes.

**Special JS feature or syntax**

There doesn't seem to be any special JavaScript features or syntax being used in this benchmark. It's a straightforward test case comparing two simple function behaviors.

**Other alternatives**

If you wanted to create an alternative test case, you could consider:

* Comparing the behavior of `null` and `undefined` as function return values in different contexts.
* Testing the optimization level of JavaScript engines when dealing with `return null` versus no `return` statements.
* Investigating how different browsers handle these scenarios.

Keep in mind that the provided benchmark is relatively simple, so alternative test cases might require more complex scenarios or libraries to be meaningful.

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 8 years ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/56.0.2906.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 56 on Windows 7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
nullFunc	7289946.0 Ops/sec
undefinedFunc	7328505.5 Ops/sec

Related benchmarks:

Return true vs return; (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: nullFunc vs undefinedFunc

Created: 8 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

nullFunc

undefinedFunc

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated one month ago):