What's the fastest way to convert String to Number in JavaScript?

Question

There are 4 ways to do it as far as I know.

Number(x);
parseInt(x, 10);
parseFloat(x);
+x;

By this quick test I made, it actually depends on browsers.

http://jsperf.com/best-of-string-to-number-conversion/2

Implicit marked the fastest on 3 browsers, but it makes the code hard to read… So choose whatever you feel like it!

There are at least 5 ways to do this:

If you want to convert to integers only, another fast (and short) way is the double-bitwise not (i.e. using two tilde characters):

e.g.

~~x;

Reference: http://james.padolsey.com/cool-stuff/double-bitwise-not/

The 5 common ways I know so far to convert a string to a number all have their differences (there are more bitwise operators that work, but they all give the same result as ~~). This JSFiddle shows the different results you can expect in the debug console: http://jsfiddle.net/TrueBlueAussie/j7x0q0e3/22/

var values = ["123",
          undefined,
          "not a number",
          "123.45",
          "1234 error",
          "2147483648",
          "4999999999"
          ];

for (var i = 0; i < values.length; i++){
    var x = values[i];

    console.log(x);
    console.log(" Number(x) = " + Number(x));
    console.log(" parseInt(x, 10) = " + parseInt(x, 10));
    console.log(" parseFloat(x) = " + parseFloat(x));
    console.log(" +x = " + +x);
    console.log(" ~~x = " + ~~x);
}

Debug console:

123
  Number(x) = 123
  parseInt(x, 10) = 123
  parseFloat(x) = 123
  +x = 123
  ~~x = 123
undefined
  Number(x) = NaN
  parseInt(x, 10) = NaN
  parseFloat(x) = NaN
  +x = NaN
  ~~x = 0
null
  Number(x) = 0
  parseInt(x, 10) = NaN
  parseFloat(x) = NaN
  +x = 0
  ~~x = 0
"not a number"
  Number(x) = NaN
  parseInt(x, 10) = NaN
  parseFloat(x) = NaN
  +x = NaN
  ~~x = 0
123.45
  Number(x) = 123.45
  parseInt(x, 10) = 123
  parseFloat(x) = 123.45
  +x = 123.45
  ~~x = 123
1234 error
  Number(x) = NaN
  parseInt(x, 10) = 1234
  parseFloat(x) = 1234
  +x = NaN
  ~~x = 0
2147483648
  Number(x) = 2147483648
  parseInt(x, 10) = 2147483648
  parseFloat(x) = 2147483648
  +x = 2147483648
  ~~x = -2147483648
4999999999
  Number(x) = 4999999999
  parseInt(x, 10) = 4999999999
  parseFloat(x) = 4999999999
  +x = 4999999999
  ~~x = 705032703

The ~~x version results in a number in "more" cases, where others often result in undefined, but it fails for invalid input (e.g. it will return 0 if the string contains non-number characters after a valid number).

Overflow

Please note: Integer overflow and/or bit truncation can occur with ~~, but not the other conversions. While it is unusual to be entering such large values, you need to be aware of this. Example updated to include much larger values.

Some Perf tests indicate that the standard parseInt and parseFloat functions are actually the fastest options, presumably highly optimised by browsers, but it all depends on your requirement as all options are fast enough: http://jsperf.com/best-of-string-to-number-conversion/37

This all depends on how the perf tests are configured as some show parseInt/parseFloat to be much slower.

My theory is:

• Lies
• Darn lines
• Statistics
• JSPerf results :)

Prefix the string with the + operator.

console.log(+'a') // NaN
console.log(+'1') // 1
console.log(+1) // 1

A fast way to convert strings to an integer is to use a bitwise or, like so:

x | 0

While it depends on how it is implemented, in theory it should be relatively fast (at least as fast as +x) since it will first cast x to a number and then perform a very efficient or.