Benchmark: json stringify vs array tostring 2

Script Preparation code:

function moreData(arr, left) {
  if(left === 0) return arr;
  else {
    arr.push(Math.floor(Math.random() * 256));
  	return moreData(arr, left - 1);
  }
}
function makeTestData() { return moreData([], 20); }

Tests:

toString
makeTestData().toString()
JSON.stringify
JSON.stringify(makeTestData());

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
toString
JSON.stringify

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 4 years ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:81.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/81.0

Browser/OS: Firefox 81 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
toString	1053039.6 Ops/sec
JSON.stringify	866768.5 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's dive into the explanation of the provided benchmark.

**Benchmark Definition**

The benchmark is defined by two test cases:

1. `makeTestData().toString()`
2. `JSON.stringify(makeTestData())`

These two test cases are designed to measure the performance difference between using `toString()` and `JSON.stringify()` on an array created by the `makeTestData()` function.

**`makeTestData()` Function**

The `makeTestData()` function generates a large array of 20 random integers, each ranging from 0 to 255. The function is recursive, pushing new random numbers onto the array until it reaches the desired length.

**Options Compared**

Two options are compared:

1. **`toString()`**: Converts the generated array into a string using the `toString()` method.
2. **`JSON.stringify()`**: Converts the generated array into a JSON string using the `JSON.stringify()` method.

**Pros and Cons of Each Approach**

* `toString()`: This approach is lightweight, as it only requires converting an array to a string. However:
	+ It might not be suitable for arrays containing non-string values, as it would result in a misleading output.
	+ It could lead to performance issues if the array is very large, as the conversion process can take significant time.
* `JSON.stringify()` : This approach converts the entire array into a JSON string. Its pros are:
	+ More robust than `toString()`, as it handles non-string values correctly.
	+ Can be faster for large arrays, as the conversion process is optimized for JSON output.

**Library and Purpose**

The `JSON` library is used in this benchmark to provide the `JSON.stringify()` method. The purpose of this library is to enable secure, reliable data interchange between web servers and web browsers.

**Special JS Feature or Syntax (None)**

There are no special JavaScript features or syntax used in this benchmark.

**Other Alternatives**

If you wanted to test other options, some alternatives could be:

* Using `Array.prototype.join()` instead of `toString()`
* Using a different method for generating random numbers (e.g., `Math.random()`)
* Comparing the performance of other methods for converting arrays to strings or JSON strings (e.g., `JSON.parse()` + `JSON.stringify()`, or using a library like `lodash`)

Keep in mind that these alternatives would require additional modifications to the benchmark code.

Related benchmarks:

json stringify vs array tostring 2 (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: toString vs JSON.stringify

Created: 4 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

toString

JSON.stringify

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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