For-loop performance: storing array length in a variable

Question

Consider two versions of the same loop iteration:

for (var i = 0; i < nodes.length; i++) {
    ...
}

and

var len = nodes.length;
for (var i = 0; i < len; i++) {
    ...
}

Is the latter version anyhow faster than the former one?

Answer 1

The accepted answer is not right because any decent engine should be able to hoist the property load out of the loop with so simple loop bodies.

See this jsperf - at least in V8 it is interesting to see how actually storing it in a variable changes the register allocation - in the code where variable is used the sum variable is stored on the stack whereas with the array.length-in-a-loop-code it is stored in a register. I assume something similar is happening in SpiderMonkey and Opera too.

According to the author, JSPerf is used incorrectly, 70% of the time. These broken jsperfs as given in all answers here give misleading results and people draw wrong conclusions from them.

Some red flags are putting code in the test cases instead of functions, not testing the result for correctness or using some mechanism of eliminating dead code elimination, defining function in setup or test cases instead of global.. For consistency you will want to warm-up the test functions before any benchmark too, so that compiling doesn't happen in the timed section.

Answer 2

Update: 16/12/2015

As this answer still seems to get a lot of views I wanted to re-examine the problem as browsers and JS engines continue to evolve.

Rather than using JSPerf I've put together some code to loop through arrays using both methods mentioned in the original question. I've put the code into functions to break down the functionality as would hopefully be done in a real world application:

function getTestArray(numEntries) {
  var testArray = [];
  for (var i = 0; i < numEntries; i++) {
    testArray.push(Math.random());
  }
  return testArray;
}

function testInVariable(testArray) {
  for (var i = 0; i < testArray.length; i++) {
    doSomethingAwesome(testArray[i]);
  }
}

function testInLoop(testArray) {
  var len = testArray.length;
  for (var i = 0; i < len; i++) {
    doSomethingAwesome(testArray[i]);
  }
}

function doSomethingAwesome(i) {
  return i + 2;
}

function runAndAverageTest(testToRun, testArray, numTimesToRun) {
  var totalTime = 0;
  for (var i = 0; i < numTimesToRun; i++) {
    var start = new Date();
    testToRun(testArray);
    var end = new Date();
    totalTime += (end - start);
  }
  return totalTime / numTimesToRun;
}

function runTests() {
  var smallTestArray = getTestArray(10000);
  var largeTestArray = getTestArray(10000000);

  var smallTestInLoop = runAndAverageTest(testInLoop, smallTestArray, 5);
  var largeTestInLoop = runAndAverageTest(testInLoop, largeTestArray, 5);
  var smallTestVariable = runAndAverageTest(testInVariable, smallTestArray, 5);
  var largeTestVariable = runAndAverageTest(testInVariable, largeTestArray, 5);

  console.log("Length in for statement (small array): " + smallTestInLoop + "ms");
  console.log("Length in for statement (large array): " + largeTestInLoop + "ms");
  console.log("Length in variable (small array): " + smallTestVariable + "ms");
  console.log("Length in variable (large array): " + largeTestVariable + "ms");
}

console.log("Iteration 1");
runTests();
console.log("Iteration 2");
runTests();
console.log("Iteration 3");
runTests();

In order to achieve as fair a test as possible each test is run 5 times and the results averaged. I've also run the entire test including generation of the array 3 times. Testing on Chrome on my machine indicated that the time it took using each method was almost identical.

It's important to remember that this example is a bit of a toy example, in fact most examples taken out of the context of your application are likely to yield unreliable information because the other things your code is doing may be affecting the performance directly or indirectly.

The bottom line

The best way to determine what performs best for your application is to test it yourself! JS engines, browser technology and CPU technology are constantly evolving so it's imperative that you always test performance for yourself within the context of your application. It's also worth asking yourself whether you have a performance problem at all, if you don't then time spent making micro optimizations that are imperceptible to the user could be better spent fixing bugs and adding features, leading to happier users :).

Original Answer:

The latter one would be slightly faster. The length property does not iterate over the array to check the number of elements, but every time it is called on the array, that array must be dereferenced. By storing the length in a variable the array dereference is not necessary each iteration of the loop.

If you're interested in the performance of different ways of looping through an array in javascript then take a look at this jsperf

Answer 3

According to w3schools "Reduce Activity in Loops" the following is considered bad code:

for (i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) {

And the following is considered good code:

var arrLength = arr.length;
for (i = 0; i < arrLength; i++) {

Since accessing the DOM is slow, the following was written to test the theory:

<!doctype html>

<html lang="en">
	<head>
		<meta charset="utf-8">
		<title>my test scripts</title>
	</head>
	
	<body>
		<button onclick="initArray()">Init Large Array</button>
		<button onclick="iterateArraySlowly()">Iterate Large Array Slowly</button>
		<button onclick="iterateArrayQuickly()">Iterate Large Array Quickly</button>
		
		<p id="slow">Slow Time: </p>
		<p id="fast">Fast Time: </p>
		<p id="access"></p>


	
	<script>
	var myArray = [];
			
		function initArray(){
			var length = 1e6;
			var i;
			for(i = 0; i < length; i++) {
				myArray[i] = i;
			}
			console.log("array size: " + myArray.length);
		}
		
		function iterateArraySlowly() {
			var t0 = new Date().getTime();
			var slowText = "Slow Time: "
			var i, t;
			var elm = document.getElementById("slow");
			for (i = 0; i < myArray.length; i++) {
				document.getElementById("access").innerHTML = "Value: " + i;
			}
			t = new Date().getTime() - t0;
			elm.innerHTML = slowText + t + "ms";
		}
		
		function iterateArrayQuickly() {
			var t0 = new Date().getTime();
			var fastText = "Fast Time: "
			var i, t;
			var elm = document.getElementById("fast");
			var length = myArray.length;
			for (i = 0; i < length; i++) {
				document.getElementById("access").innerHTML = "Value: " + i;
			}
			t = new Date().getTime() - t0;
			elm.innerHTML = fastText + t + "ms";
		
		}
	</script>
	</body>
</html>

The interesting thing is that the iteration executed first always seems to win out over the other. But what is considered "bad code" seems to win the majority of the time after each have been executed a few times. Perhaps someone smarter than myself can explain why. But for now, syntax wise I'm sticking to what is more legible for me:

for (i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) {