Benchmark: Optional chaining vs native code

Script Preparation code:

var foo={}

Tests:

Optional Chaining
foo?.bar?.baz?.qux;
Native
foo && foo.bar && foo.bar.baz && foo.bar.baz.qux

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
Optional Chaining
Native

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 2 years ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 16_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/16.1 Mobile/15E148 Safari/604.1

Browser/OS: Mobile Safari 16 on iOS 16.1

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
Optional Chaining	30639258.0 Ops/sec
Native	16639729.0 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 world of JavaScript microbenchmarks!

**What is being tested?**

The provided benchmark measures the performance difference between two ways to access nested properties in an object: Optional Chaining (`?.`) and Native Code (`&&`).

**Options compared:**

There are two main options being compared:

1. **Optional Chaining (`?.`)**: This syntax allows you to access nested properties in an object without worrying about null or undefined values. It's a shorthand for `obj && obj.prop && obj.prop2 && ...`.
2. **Native Code (`&&`)**: This approach uses the traditional way of accessing nested properties, where each property is accessed separately and checked for existence before proceeding.

**Pros and Cons:**

* **Optional Chaining (?.)**:
	+ Pros:
		- Reduces code clutter and improves readability.
		- Avoids null pointer exceptions and potential performance issues.
	+ Cons:
		- May introduce additional overhead due to the parsing mechanism.
		- Not supported in older browsers or Node.js versions.
* **Native Code (&&)**:
	+ Pros:
		- Wide support across various browsers and Node.js versions.
		- Typically more efficient since it's a straightforward, native operation.
	+ Cons:
		- Can lead to null pointer exceptions if not handled properly.
		- Increases code complexity due to the need for explicit checks.

**Library usage:**

There is no specific library mentioned in the benchmark. However, it's worth noting that Optional Chaining was introduced in ECMAScript 2020 (ES2020) and became a standard feature in modern JavaScript engines.

**Special JS features or syntax:**

None are explicitly mentioned in this benchmark, but keep in mind that some other features like `const` declarations, arrow functions, and template literals might be enabled on the target browsers or Node.js versions used for testing.

**Other alternatives:**

If you're interested in exploring alternative ways to access nested properties, consider:

1. **Using a function**: You can define a function with multiple arguments, each corresponding to a property path, like this: `function foo() { return obj.prop && obj.prop2; }`.
2. **Utilizing a library**: There are libraries available that provide optimized implementations for accessing nested properties, such as `lodash` or `obj-proxy`.

However, these alternatives may come with additional overhead and might not be suitable for all use cases.

I hope this explanation helps you understand the benchmarking scenario!

Related benchmarks:

Optional chaining vs native code (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: Optional Chaining vs Native

Created: 4 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

Optional Chaining

Native

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):