Benchmark: RegExp.test() vs String.match()

Script Preparation code:

var reStr = '^[0-9]+$';
var re = new RegExp(re);

Tests:

RegExp.test()
!re.test('123');
String.match()
!'123'.match(reStr);

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
RegExp.test()
String.match()

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 5 years ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.14; rv:70.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/70.0

Browser/OS: Firefox 70 on Mac OS X 10.14

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
RegExp.test()	30955626.0 Ops/sec
String.match()	5042227.5 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's dive into the world of JavaScript microbenchmarks on MeasureThat.net.

**What is being tested?**

The provided JSON represents a benchmark that compares two approaches for testing regular expressions (REs) in JavaScript: `RegExp.test()` and `String.match()`. The benchmark measures the performance difference between these two methods when used with a specific regular expression pattern (`^[0-9]+$`) on a string literal `'123'`.

**Options compared**

Two options are being compared:

1. **`RegExp.test()`**: This method tests if the entire string matches the regular expression.
2. **`String.match()`**: This method returns an array of matches or `null` if no match is found.

**Pros and Cons of each approach:**

1. **`RegExp.test()`**:
	* Pros: More intuitive for simple cases, can be more efficient when used with a single regular expression.
	* Cons: Can be slower than `String.match()` for complex patterns or when used with multiple matches.
2. **`String.match()`**:
	* Pros: Faster and more memory-efficient for complex patterns or when used with multiple matches, as it returns an array of matches instead of testing the entire string.
	* Cons: Less intuitive for simple cases, may require additional processing to extract individual matches.

**Library and purpose**

In this benchmark, `RegExp` is a built-in JavaScript library that provides regular expression functionality. Its purpose is to test if a given string matches a specified pattern.

**Special JS feature or syntax**

None mentioned in the provided code snippet.

**Other alternatives**

If you're interested in exploring alternative approaches, consider:

1. **Using a different regular expression engine**: Some browsers have built-in support for other regex engines, like V8 (used by Chrome) or SpiderMonkey (used by Firefox). However, these differences are usually negligible and depend on the specific browser.
2. **Implementing custom regex functionality**: You could write your own custom regex implementation using JavaScript's `String.prototype` methods or other libraries like `regex-execution`. This approach would require significant effort and optimization to match the performance of built-in engines.

**Benchmark preparation code**

The provided script preparation code creates a regular expression object (`re`) using the pattern `^[0-9]+$`, which matches only digits from start to end. The test cases use this regular expression with different approaches: `RegExp.test()` and `String.match()`.

**Individual test cases**

Each test case has two parts:

1. **Benchmark Definition**: A simple JavaScript statement that exercises one of the comparison methods (e.g., `!re.test('123')` or `'123'.match(reStr)`).
2. **Test Name**: The name of the test case, which in this example is "RegExp.test()" and "String.match()".

**Latest benchmark result**

The provided JSON contains two benchmark results for each test case:

1. **RawUAString**: A string representing the user agent (browser type) that ran the benchmark.
2. **Browser**: The specific browser version used to run the benchmark.
3. **DevicePlatform**: The device platform (Desktop, Mobile, etc.) used to run the benchmark.
4. **OperatingSystem**: The operating system used to run the benchmark.
5. **ExecutionsPerSecond**: The number of times each test case was executed per second.

These results provide insight into how different browsers and environments perform when running these specific test cases.

Related benchmarks:

RegExp.test() vs String.match() (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: RegExp.test() vs String.match()

Created: 5 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

RegExp.test()

String.match()

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):