Benchmark: The performance cost of try catch

Script Preparation code:

var a = 0
function f () {
  a += 0.01
  if (a < 0) {
    throw new Error()
  }
}

Tests:

plain
f()
try catch
try { f() } catch (e) { console.log(e) }

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
plain
try catch

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/108.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 Edg/108.0.1462.46

Browser/OS: Chrome 108 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
plain	3244800.0 Ops/sec
try catch	3268037.8 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 and explore what's being tested on MeasureThat.net.

The benchmark definition JSON represents two test cases:

**Script Preparation Code**
```javascript
var a = 0;
function f() {
  a += 0.01;
  if (a < 0) {
    throw new Error();
  }
}
```
This code defines a function `f()` that increments a variable `a` by 0.01 every time it's called. If `a` ever becomes negative, an error is thrown.

**Options being compared**

The benchmark compares two approaches:

1. **Plain execution**: The test simply calls the `f()` function without any try-catch block.
2. **Try-catch execution**: The test wraps the call to `f()` in a try-catch block, which catches and logs any errors thrown by the function.

**Pros and Cons**

* **Plain execution**:
	+ Pros: Simpler, less overhead due to error handling.
	+ Cons: May not accurately represent real-world scenarios where exceptions are thrown.
* **Try-catch execution**:
	+ Pros: More realistic, as try-catch blocks are commonly used in JavaScript to handle errors.
	+ Cons: Adds overhead due to the extra logic for catching and logging errors.

**Library usage**

There is no explicit library mentioned in the benchmark definition. However, it's likely that MeasureThat.net uses a hidden library or framework to execute the benchmarks and provide the results.

**Special JS features/syntax**

None are explicitly mentioned. The code uses standard JavaScript syntax and features.

Now, let's look at the individual test cases:

* **plain**: This test case calls the `f()` function without any try-catch block.
* **try catch**: This test case wraps the call to `f()` in a try-catch block, which catches and logs any errors thrown by the function.

**Other alternatives**

Some alternative approaches could be explored, such as:

1. **No-op execution**: Instead of calling the `f()` function, simply execute some no-op code (e.g., a constant value) to test the function's overhead.
2. **Loop-based execution**: Call the `f()` function in a loop to simulate repeated executions and measure the overhead.
3. **Async execution**: Use async/await or Promises to test the function's behavior under asynchronous conditions.

These alternative approaches might provide additional insights into the performance characteristics of the `f()` function, but they would require modifications to the benchmark definition and execution code.

That's a summary of what's being tested on MeasureThat.net!

Related benchmarks:

The performance cost of try catch (version: 2)

Comparing performance of: plain vs try catch

Created: 4 years ago by: Registered User

Jump to the latest result

plain

try catch

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):