Benchmark: fisrtchild/lastchild/innercontent performance

HTML Preparation code:

<div id='messages'></div>

Script Preparation code:

let list = document.getElementById("messages");
for(i=0; i<1000; i++) {
	list.innerHTML += "<span>Text</span>"
}

Tests:

firstChild/firstChild
let list = document.getElementById("messages"); while (list.firstChild) { list.removeChild(list.firstChild); }
lastChild/lastChild
let list = document.getElementById("messages"); while (list.lastChild) { list.removeChild(list.lastChild); }
firstChild/lastChild
let list = document.getElementById("messages"); while (list.firstChild) { list.removeChild(list.lastChild); }
lastChild/firstChild
let list = document.getElementById("messages"); while (list.lastChild) { list.removeChild(list.firstChild); }
innerHTML
document.getElementById("messages").innerHTML = "";
textContent
document.getElementById("messages").textContent = "";

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
firstChild/firstChild
lastChild/lastChild
firstChild/lastChild
lastChild/firstChild
innerHTML
textContent

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's break down the provided benchmark json and explain what is being tested, compared, and the pros and cons of each approach.

**Benchmark Definition**

The benchmark definition represents a JavaScript code snippet that removes children from a DOM container. There are two main approaches:

1. **Removing first child**: `while (list.firstChild) { list.removeChild(list.firstChild); }`
2. **Removing last child**: `while (list.lastChild) { list.removeChild(list.lastChild); }`

Both approaches iterate through the children of the container and remove them one by one.

**Comparison**

The benchmark compares the execution times of these two approaches on different browsers, devices, and operating systems. The goal is to determine which approach is faster and more efficient.

**Pros and Cons of each approach:**

1. **Removing first child**: This approach has a few advantages:
	* It's simpler and easier to understand.
	* It avoids the overhead of checking for `lastChild` property, which can be slower in some browsers.
However, this approach also has some disadvantages:
	* It may not work correctly if the container has no children or only one child.
2. **Removing last child**: This approach has a few advantages:
	* It's more efficient when the container has multiple children and needs to remove them all.
	* It avoids potential issues with `firstChild` property.
However, this approach also has some disadvantages:
	* It may be slower due to the overhead of checking for `lastChild` property in some browsers.

**Library and Special JS Features**

There are no explicit libraries or special JS features used in these benchmarks. However, it's worth noting that some modern browsers like Safari have optimized DOM manipulation methods that might affect the execution times.

**Other Alternatives**

Besides these two approaches, there are other ways to remove children from a DOM container:

1. **innerHTML**: `document.getElementById("messages").innerHTML = "";` - This approach sets the inner HTML of the container to an empty string, effectively removing all child nodes.
2. **textContent**: `document.getElementById("messages").textContent = "";` - Similar to `innerHTML`, this approach sets the text content of the container to an empty string.

These approaches are generally faster and more efficient than using `removeChild()` method for each individual child node.

**Why these benchmarks?**

The reason behind creating these benchmarks is to:

1. **Measure performance**: Compare the execution times of different approaches on various browsers, devices, and operating systems.
2. **Identify optimization opportunities**: Determine which approach is faster and more efficient, allowing developers to optimize their code accordingly.
3. **Promote best practices**: Encourage developers to use optimized methods for DOM manipulation, leading to better performance and user experience.

By analyzing these benchmarks, we can gain insights into the performance characteristics of different approaches and make informed decisions about how to optimize our JavaScript code.

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: one year ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/16.3 Safari/605.1.15

Browser/OS: Safari 16 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
firstChild/firstChild	5599137.0 Ops/sec
lastChild/lastChild	5694067.0 Ops/sec
firstChild/lastChild	5646097.0 Ops/sec
lastChild/firstChild	5664372.0 Ops/sec
innerHTML	5227728.0 Ops/sec
textContent	5206052.5 Ops/sec

Related benchmarks:

fisrtchild/lastchild/innercontent performance (version: 0)

remvoe children from DOM container

Comparing performance of: firstChild/firstChild vs lastChild/lastChild vs firstChild/lastChild vs lastChild/firstChild vs innerHTML vs textContent

Created: 2 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

firstChild/firstChild

lastChild/lastChild

firstChild/lastChild

lastChild/firstChild

innerHTML

textContent

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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