Benchmark: textContent vs. firstChild.nodeValue

HTML Preparation code:

<div id='message'>Test Message</div>

Tests:

textContent
const element = document.getElementById('message') if (!element) throw 'no element found'; element.textContent = 'A New Message';
firstChild.nodeValue
const element = document.getElementById('message') if (!element) throw 'no element found'; element.firstChild.nodeValue = 'A New Message';

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
textContent
firstChild.nodeValue

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 2 years ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/16.1 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
textContent	5688592.5 Ops/sec
firstChild.nodeValue	9803651.0 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's break down the provided JSON benchmark and explain what's being tested.

**Benchmark Overview**

The benchmark compares two approaches to update the text content of an HTML element: using `textContent` and using the `firstChild.nodeValue` property.

**Options Compared**

There are two options being compared:

1. **`textContent`**: This option uses the `textContent` property of the DOM element to set its text content.
2. **`firstChild.nodeValue`**: This option uses the `nodeValue` property of the first child node of the DOM element to set its text content.

**Pros and Cons**

* **`textContent`**:
	+ Pros: More concise, efficient, and widely supported across browsers.
	+ Cons: May not work as expected if there are multiple child nodes with different text content.
* **`firstChild.nodeValue`**:
	+ Pros: Works even if there are multiple child nodes, but it's less concise and might be slower due to the need to access the first child node.
	+ Cons: Less efficient and less widely supported across browsers.

In general, `textContent` is a more modern and efficient approach, while `firstChild.nodeValue` is an older method that still works in some cases.

**Library and Special JS Features**

There are no libraries or special JS features mentioned in the provided code. The benchmark only uses standard DOM methods and properties.

**Other Considerations**

When updating text content on a DOM element, it's essential to consider factors like:

* **Browser compatibility**: Ensure that both options work across different browsers and versions.
* **Performance**: Choose the most efficient approach for your use case.
* **Conciseness**: Use the most concise syntax possible while maintaining readability.

**Alternatives**

Other approaches to update text content on a DOM element include:

* Using `innerHTML` property, which can be less efficient and more error-prone due to security concerns (e.g., XSS attacks).
* Using a library like jQuery or React, which may provide additional features and optimizations, but also add dependencies and potential overhead.

Keep in mind that the best approach will depend on your specific use case and requirements.

Related benchmarks:

textContent vs. firstChild.nodeValue (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: textContent vs firstChild.nodeValue

Created: 2 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

textContent

firstChild.nodeValue

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):