Benchmark: Regex vs .indexOf vs .includes

HTML Preparation code:

<div></div>

Script Preparation code:

window.regex = /^test/;
window.match = 'test';
var data = window.data = [];
const possible = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789";
var TOTAL_STRINGS = window.TOTAL_STRINGS = 100000;

function getRandomInt(max) {
  return Math.floor(Math.random() * max);
}

function makeRandomString(len) {
  var text = "";
  for( var i=0; i < len; i++ ) {
    text += possible.charAt(getRandomInt(possible.length));
  }
  return text;
}

while (data.length < TOTAL_STRINGS) {
  data.push(makeRandomString(getRandomInt(20)));
}

Tests:

Regex
var x = 0; var TOTAL_STRINGS = window.TOTAL_STRINGS; var data = window.data; var regex = window.regex; while (x < TOTAL_STRINGS) { const str = data[x]; regex.test(str); x += 1; }
.indexOf
var x = 0; var TOTAL_STRINGS = window.TOTAL_STRINGS; var data = window.data; var match = window.match; while (x < TOTAL_STRINGS) { const str = data[x]; str.indexOf(match) === 0; x += 1; }
.includes
var x = 0; var TOTAL_STRINGS = window.TOTAL_STRINGS; var data = window.data; var match = window.match; while (x < TOTAL_STRINGS) { const str = data[x]; str.includes(match); x += 1; }

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
Regex
.indexOf
.includes

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated 26 days ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Measuring the performance of different JavaScript methods for string matching is a crucial task, and MeasureThat.net provides a valuable platform for benchmarking.

The provided JSON represents a benchmark test that compares three popular JavaScript string matching methods:

1. **Regex** (Regular Expressions)
2. **.indexOf** (String.prototype.indexOf())
3. **.includes** (String.prototype.includes())

Let's dive into the details of each approach:

**Regex**

Regex is a powerful pattern-matching method that allows you to search for patterns in strings. It's widely used in many programming languages, including JavaScript.

Pros:

* Highly flexible and customizable
* Can be used for complex string matching tasks

Cons:

* Performance can be slow due to the complexity of the regular expression engine
* May not perform well on very large datasets or performance-critical applications

**.indexOf**

IndexOf is a simple method that finds the index of a specific value within a string.

Pros:

* Fast and efficient, especially for small to medium-sized strings
* Works well for finding exact matches

Cons:

* Limited flexibility and customization options
* May not work correctly for very large datasets or edge cases

**.includes**

Includes is similar to .indexOf but returns `true` if the value is found anywhere in the string.

Pros:

* Slightly faster than .indexOf due to reduced overhead
* Works well for finding exact matches, similar to .indexOf

Cons:

* May not be as efficient as .indexOf for very large datasets

Now, let's consider other alternatives that could have been used instead of these three methods:

1. **String.prototype.search()**: This method returns the index of the first occurrence of a value within a string.
2. **String.prototype.match()**: This method returns an array containing all matches of a regular expression pattern in a string.
3. **NativeArray.prototype.indexOf()** or **NativeArray.prototype.lastIndexOf()**: These methods are similar to .indexOf but work on native arrays instead of strings.

In this benchmark, the test users special JS features and syntax, such as regular expressions (Regex). The `window.regex` variable is defined in the Script Preparation Code section, which allows the tests to use it throughout the benchmark.

Latest run results:

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

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/16.0 Safari/605.1.15

Browser/OS: Safari 16 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
Regex	238.1 Ops/sec
.indexOf	145.3 Ops/sec
.includes	140.9 Ops/sec

Related benchmarks:

Regex vs .indexOf vs .includes (version: 0)

Testing some things

Comparing performance of: Regex vs .indexOf vs .includes

Created: 2 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

Regex

.indexOf

.includes

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated 26 days ago):