Benchmark: RegEx.test vs String.search js

Script Preparation code:

var REGEX = /abcdef/

Tests:

RegEx.test()
REGEX.test('This is a sample text that should work.');REGEX.lastIndex=0;
String.search()
'This is a sample text that should work.'.search(REGEX)

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
RegEx.test()
String.search()

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

I'll break down the benchmark and explain what's being tested, compared options, pros and cons, and other considerations.

**Benchmark Overview**

The benchmark compares two approaches to search for a pattern in a string: `String.search()` and `RegExp.test()`. The test case uses a regular expression (`REGEX`) defined at the beginning of the script preparation code.

**Regular Expression (REGEX)**

The REGEX is defined as `/abcdef/` which matches the exact sequence of characters "abcdef" in any position within the string. It's likely used to find the first occurrence of this pattern in a sample text.

**Test Cases**

There are two test cases:

1. **RegEx.test()**: This test case calls `RegExp.test()` with the REGEX and a sample text that should match the pattern.
2. **String.search()**: This test case calls `String.search()` with the same REGEX and sample text, but without using `RegExp` explicitly.

**Comparison**

The benchmark measures the execution time of each approach to perform the search operation. The results are compared to determine which method is faster for this specific use case.

**Pros and Cons**

* **RegEx.test()**
	+ Pros:
		- More concise and readable code
		- Can be used with a single call, reducing overhead
	+ Cons:
		- May not be as efficient as `String.search()` in some cases (e.g., when using anchors like `^` or `$`)
* **String.search()**
	+ Pros:
		- More flexible and powerful, allowing for more complex search operations
		- Can be used with anchors to specify exact matches
	+ Cons:
		- Requires an additional function call, potentially introducing overhead

**Other Considerations**

* Using `RegExp.test()` can lead to better performance when searching for a specific pattern in a large string, as it avoids the need for an extra loop to iterate through potential matches.
* However, when using anchors like `^` or `$`, `String.search()` may be faster because it only searches within the specified bounds, reducing unnecessary iterations.

**Library/Functionality**

There is no external library being used in this benchmark. The functionality is built-in to JavaScript's standard library:

* `RegExp`: A class that represents a regular expression.
* `String`: An object that provides methods for manipulating strings, including `search()`, which searches for a pattern within the string.

**Special JS Features/Syntax**

There are no special JavaScript features or syntax being tested in this benchmark. The code is straightforward and uses standard library functions.

**Alternatives**

If you need to compare other approaches to search for patterns in strings, here are some alternatives:

* **Using `String.match()`**: This method can be used with regular expressions to find all matches within the string.
* **Using `Array.prototype.forEach()`**: This method can be used to iterate through a string and perform operations on each character or substring.
* **Using a library like Lodash**: This utility library provides functions for working with strings, including searching and matching.

Keep in mind that these alternatives may introduce additional complexity or performance overhead compared to the original `RegExp.test()` and `String.search()` approaches.

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: one year ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/115.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 115 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
RegEx.test()	3897318.8 Ops/sec
String.search()	6105348.5 Ops/sec

Related benchmarks:

RegEx.test vs String.search js (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: RegEx.test() vs String.search()

Created: one year ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

RegEx.test()

String.search()

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):