Benchmark: Simple string compare vs SHA-1 hash

Script Preparation code:

let s10MB = "0123456789".repeat(1000*1000);
var strings10MB = Array.from(Array(20)).map(o=>s10MB + String.fromCharCode(32+~~(Math.random()*96)));

function hashString(input) {
    var encoder = new TextEncoder();
    return crypto.subtle.digest('SHA-1', encoder.encode(input)).then(function (hashBuffer) {
      var hashArray = Array.from(new Uint8Array(hashBuffer));
      return hashArray.map(byte => byte.toString(16).padStart(2, '0')).join('');
    });
}

Tests:

===
const s1 = strings10MB[~~(strings10MB.length*Math.random())]; const s2 = strings10MB[~~(strings10MB.length*Math.random())]; const b = s1 === s2;
SHA-1
const s1 = strings10MB[~~(strings10MB.length*Math.random())]; const s2 = strings10MB[~~(strings10MB.length*Math.random())]; const hash1 = hashString(s1); const hash2 = hashString(s2); const b = hash1 === hash2;

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
===
SHA-1

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 8 months ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/124.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 124 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
===	949.4 Ops/sec
SHA-1	33.6 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

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

**Benchmark Purpose**

The goal of this benchmark is to compare two approaches for checking if two strings are equal: a simple string comparison using the `===` operator, and a hash-based approach using the SHA-1 algorithm. The benchmark aims to determine which approach is faster and more efficient in terms of execution time.

**Options Compared**

There are two options being compared:

1. **Simple String Comparison (`===`)**: This method uses the equality operator (`===`) to compare two strings. It's a straightforward approach that works well for most cases, but may be slow or inaccurate for very large or complex strings.
2. **Hash-Based Approach (SHA-1)**: This method calculates the SHA-1 hash of each string and compares the resulting hashes using the `===` operator. Hash-based approaches are often used in situations where data integrity is critical, as small changes to a string can result in significantly different hashes.

**Pros and Cons**

**Simple String Comparison (`===`)**

Pros:

* Easy to implement and understand
* Fast for short or simple strings
* Accurate for most cases

Cons:

* Slow or inaccurate for very large or complex strings
* May not work well with Unicode or non-ASCII characters

**Hash-Based Approach (SHA-1)**

Pros:

* Can handle large or complex strings more efficiently
* Can be used to detect data corruption or tampering
* Works well with Unicode or non-ASCII characters

Cons:

* Requires calculating the SHA-1 hash, which can be computationally expensive
* May not work well if the input string is very short (e.g., a single character)

**Library and Purpose**

The `crypto` library is used in the benchmark to implement the SHA-1 algorithm. The `crypto.subtle.digest()` function is used to calculate the hash of a given input string.

**Special JS Feature/Syntax**

None mentioned, but it's worth noting that this benchmark uses ES6+ syntax (e.g., arrow functions, template literals) and assumes the use of modern JavaScript features.

**Other Considerations**

When choosing between these two approaches, consider the following:

* Use the simple string comparison (`===`) for most cases where data integrity is not critical.
* Use the hash-based approach (SHA-1) when working with large or complex strings, or when data integrity is crucial.
* Be aware of the potential trade-offs in terms of execution time and accuracy.

**Alternatives**

Other alternatives to consider:

* Other hashing algorithms (e.g., MD5, SHA-256)
* More advanced string comparison techniques (e.g., Levenshtein distance, Jaro-Winkler distance)
* Using a third-party library or framework for string comparison and hashing.

Related benchmarks:

Simple string compare vs SHA-1 hash (version: 0)

Worst case large string comparison.

Comparing performance of: === vs SHA-1

Created: one year ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

===

SHA-1

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):