Benchmark: Date.valueOf vs Date.getTime() vs Number

Tests:

getTime
const a = new Date().getTime()
valueOf
const a = new Date().valueOf()
Number(new Date())
Number(new Date())

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
getTime
valueOf
Number(new Date())

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's break down the benchmark and analyze what's being tested.

The provided JSON represents a JavaScript microbenchmark created on MeasureThat.net. The benchmark is testing three different approaches to get the current time in milliseconds: `Date.valueOf()`, `Date.getTime()`, and `Number(new Date())`.

**Options Compared**

* `Date.valueOf()`: This method returns the value of the Date object as an integer.
* `Date.getTime()`: This method returns the number of milliseconds since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 UTC.
* `Number(new Date())`: This expression converts the current Date object to a number.

**Pros and Cons**

* `Date.valueOf()`: This method is faster than `Date.getTime()` because it's a simple integer conversion. However, it may not be as accurate due to potential issues with date arithmetic and locale-specific formatting.
* `Date.getTime()`: This method provides more accuracy and precision compared to `Date.valueOf()` but is slower due to the additional calculations involved.
* `Number(new Date())`: This expression is the slowest of the three because it involves creating a new Date object, which can be expensive in terms of performance.

**Library**

None. The benchmark doesn't use any external libraries.

**Special JS Feature/Syntax**

There's no special JavaScript feature or syntax being used in this benchmark.

**Other Considerations**

When running benchmarks like this, consider the following factors:

* **Cache effects**: Are you using a cache to store previous results? This can affect performance.
* **Library dependencies**: Are there any libraries that might impact performance?
* **Browser-specific behavior**: Some browsers may behave differently due to their implementation of JavaScript features.

**Alternative Benchmarks**

If you're interested in benchmarking different approaches to getting the current time, consider these alternatives:

* `Date.now()`: This method returns the number of milliseconds since the Unix Epoch (January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 UTC).
* `performance.now()`: This method returns the high-resolution timestamp in milliseconds.
* Using a dedicated timing library like `microtime()` or `PerformanceObserver`.

In conclusion, this benchmark provides a simple comparison of three different approaches to getting the current time in JavaScript. The results indicate that `Date.getTime()` is generally faster than `Date.valueOf()`, but `Number(new Date())` is the slowest due to its overhead.

Latest run results:

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

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:132.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/132.0

Browser/OS: Firefox 132 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
getTime	9447512.0 Ops/sec
valueOf	9647604.0 Ops/sec
Number(new Date())	5612490.5 Ops/sec

Related benchmarks:

Date.valueOf vs Date.getTime() vs Number (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: getTime vs valueOf vs Number(new Date())

Created: one year ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

getTime

valueOf

Number(new Date())

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):