Benchmark: Lodash.isEqual vs JSON.stringify Equality Comparison for Shallow Array of Strings. temp test

HTML Preparation code:

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/lodash@4.17.4/lodash.min.js"></script>

Script Preparation code:

window.foo = [
  {
    test: 1,
    test2: {
      cate: 4,
      jake: [
        1,
        2,
        'abc',
        {
          cate: 4,
          jake: [1, 2, 'abc']
        }
      ]
    },
    cate: 4,
    jake: [1, 2, 'abc']
  },
  'cat',
  'dog',
  'bird'
];
window.bar = [
  {
    test: 1,
    test2: {
      cate: 4,
      jake: [
        1,
        2,
        'abc',
        {
          cate: 4,
          jake: [1, 2, 'abc']
        }
      ]
    },
    cate: 4,
    jake: [1, 2, 'abc']
  },
  'cat',
  'dog',
  'bird'
];

Tests:

_.isEqual
_.isEqual(window.foo, window.bar)
JSON.stringify
JSON.stringify(window.foo).split('').join() === JSON.stringify(window.bar).split('').join();

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
_.isEqual
JSON.stringify

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

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

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_3) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/87.0.4280.88 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 87 on Mac OS X 10.15.3

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
_.isEqual	251721.5 Ops/sec
JSON.stringify	83582.3 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

**Benchmark Overview**

The provided benchmark, hosted on MeasureThat.net, compares the performance of two approaches for equality checking in JavaScript: using Lodash's `isEqual` function versus comparing strings directly.

**Lodash.isEqual vs JSON.stringify Equality Comparison**

### Approach 1: Using Lodash's `isEqual`

Lodash's `isEqual` function is a utility function that checks if two values are deeply equal. It recursively traverses the structures of both inputs, comparing each property and value at every level.

```javascript
import _ from 'lodash';

_.isEqual(window.foo, window.bar);
```

**Pros:**

1. **Deeper equality checking**: `isEqual` checks for deep structural equality, which can be more accurate than simple string comparison.
2. **Less prone to false negatives**: `isEqual` is less likely to return false positives due to differences in data type or formatting.

**Cons:**

1. **Performance overhead**: Lodash's `isEqual` function has a performance impact compared to direct string comparison.
2. **Dependence on library**: The benchmark relies on the presence and version of Lodash, which can introduce variability in test results.

### Approach 2: Direct String Comparison

The second approach uses direct string comparison by converting both inputs to strings using `JSON.stringify` and then comparing them.

```javascript
JSON.stringify(window.foo).split('').join() === JSON.stringify(window.bar).split('').join();
```

**Pros:**

1. **Fast performance**: This approach is generally faster than using Lodash's `isEqual`.
2. **No library dependence**: The benchmark does not rely on any external libraries, making it more platform-agnostic.

**Cons:**

1. **False positives**: Direct string comparison can return false positives due to differences in data type or formatting.
2. **Limited scope**: This approach only checks for shallow equality and ignores structural differences.

**Library: Lodash**

Lodash is a popular JavaScript library that provides a wide range of utility functions, including `isEqual`. The library's existence introduces variability in the benchmark results, as users may have different versions installed.

**Special JS Features/Syntax**

None mentioned.

**Alternatives**

Other alternatives for equality checking include:

1. **Built-in `==` and `===` operators**: While not as expressive as Lodash's `isEqual`, these operators can provide quick checks for shallow equality.
2. **JSON schema validation**: Using JSON schema to validate data structures can provide more robust equality checks, but at the cost of additional library dependencies.

**Benchmark Best Practices**

To improve benchmark results:

1. Use a consistent version of the test inputs and libraries.
2. Ensure that the test environment is stable and consistent across multiple runs.
3. Consider using more advanced equality checking methods, like JSON schema validation, for critical applications.

Keep in mind that this analysis provides a general overview of the two approaches. Depending on specific use cases or requirements, other alternatives might be more suitable.

Related benchmarks:

Lodash.isEqual vs JSON.stringify Equality Comparison for Shallow Array of Strings. temp test (version: 0)

Test on isEqual performance

Comparing performance of: _.isEqual vs JSON.stringify

Created: 5 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

_.isEqual

JSON.stringify

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):