Benchmark: String split vs Regex

Script Preparation code:

var str = 'spotify:artist:3TVXtAsR1Inumwj472S9r4'

Tests:

string.split
str.split(':')[2]
Regex
str.search('[^:]+$')

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
string.split
Regex

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

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

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/105.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 105 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
string.split	7627042.5 Ops/sec
Regex	2996655.5 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's break down what's being tested in this benchmark.

The goal of this benchmark is to compare the performance of two approaches for splitting a string: using the `split()` method and using regular expressions (regex).

**Split() Method**

The `split()` method is a built-in JavaScript function that splits a string into an array of substrings based on a specified separator. In this case, the separator is a colon (`:`). The method returns an array where each element is a part of the original string.

Pros:

* Easy to use and understand
* Fast for simple cases

Cons:

* May not work as expected if the separator is not what you expect (e.g., if it's a substring of the input string)
* Can be slower than regex for more complex cases

**Regular Expressions (Regex)**

Regex is a way to match patterns in strings using a special syntax. In this case, the pattern is `[^:]+`, which matches one or more characters that are not colons (`:`). The `search()` method returns the index of the first occurrence of the pattern in the string.

Pros:

* Flexible and powerful for complex cases
* Fast for most use cases

Cons:

* Can be difficult to read and understand, especially for complex patterns
* May be slower than `split()` for very simple cases

**Other Considerations**

* The benchmark uses a specific input string (`"spotify:artist:3TVXtAsR1Inumwj472S9r4"`), which is likely chosen because it's easy to split and match.
* The benchmark runs on Chrome 105, which might be optimized for regex performance.

**Library Used**

There isn't a library explicitly mentioned in the code. However, the `search()` method uses the `RegExp` object, which is a built-in JavaScript library.

**Special JS Feature/Syntax**

The benchmark doesn't use any special JavaScript features or syntax beyond what's required for the test cases (e.g., no async/await, no ES6+ features).

**Alternatives**

Other alternatives for splitting strings include:

* Using a custom implementation with a loop and string manipulation
* Using other libraries like `lodash` or `underscore`
* Using a different approach altogether, such as using a state machine or a finite automaton

In terms of regular expressions, some alternative approaches might involve:

* Using a more complex pattern to match the desired substring
* Using a different regex engine (e.g., JavaScript's built-in engine vs. a third-party library)
* Using a different method for searching and matching, such as `match()` or `matchAll()`

Overall, this benchmark is designed to compare two common approaches for splitting strings in JavaScript: using the `split()` method and using regular expressions.

Related benchmarks:

String split vs Regex (version: 0)

String split vs Regex

Comparing performance of: string.split vs Regex

Created: 6 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

string.split

Regex

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):