Benchmark: createTextNode vs nodeValue

Script Preparation code:

var node = document.createTextNode("test");

Tests:

createTextNode("test")
var node = document.createTextNode("test");
createTextNode("")
var node = document.createTextNode(""); node.nodeValue = "test";
createTextNode(null)
var node = document.createTextNode(null); node.nodeValue = "test";
createTextNode(undefined)
var node = document.createTextNode(undefined); node.nodeValue = "test";

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
createTextNode("test")
createTextNode("")
createTextNode(null)
createTextNode(undefined)

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

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

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; K) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/130.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 130 on Android

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
createTextNode("test")	2689873.8 Ops/sec
createTextNode("")	2397189.8 Ops/sec
createTextNode(null)	1716130.6 Ops/sec
createTextNode(undefined)	1437679.5 Ops/sec

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated one month ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

The benchmark defined in the provided JSON evaluates different ways to create a text node in the DOM using the `document.createTextNode` method and then setting its `nodeValue`. This test specifically compares the performance of different methods of creating and manipulating these text nodes in JavaScript.

### Options Compared

1. **createTextNode("test")**
   - Directly creates a text node with the value "test".

2. **createTextNode("")**
   - Creates a text node with an empty string and then sets it to "test" by modifying `node.nodeValue`.
   
3. **createTextNode(null)**
   - Creates a text node with the initial value set to `null`, followed by setting the `nodeValue` to "test".

4. **createTextNode(undefined)**
   - Similar to the `null` case, but starts with `undefined`, then sets the `nodeValue` to "test".

### Pros and Cons

- **createTextNode("test")**
  - **Pros**: This method is straightforward and efficient for creating a text node that needs to start with a specific string.
  - **Cons**: None significant in a typical use case unless you are very concerned with performance differences at scale.

- **createTextNode("")**
  - **Pros**: Allows for more flexibility if you might want to change the value later. The creation is still fast for creating an empty node.
  - **Cons**: It involves an additional step of setting the `nodeValue`, which might add overhead, particularly in cases where performance is critical.

- **createTextNode(null)**
  - **Pros**: Utilizes `null` which may indicate a deliberate intention to create an undefined node initially.
  - **Cons**: Some browsers may handle the conversion of `null` to a string differently, which could lead to unpredictable behaviors in certain scenarios.

- **createTextNode(undefined)**
  - **Pros**: Similar to the `null` case; can be useful when you’re initializing a variable whose actual value will be set later.
  - **Cons**: The behavior of `undefined` may not be consistent across browsers and especially when it involves implicitly converting to a string.

### Other Considerations
- The benchmark results indicate that using `createTextNode("test")` is the fastest option, while `createTextNode(undefined)` is the slowest, reflecting the overhead associated with initializing the node's value to `undefined` or `null` before the actual value setting occurs.
  
### Alternatives 
Other possible alternatives to using `document.createTextNode()` could include:

- **InnerHTML**: Instead of creating text nodes manually, using `innerHTML` can dynamically update an entire element, but this approach can be less secure and inefficient for text-only updates due to HTML parsing.
  
- **Text Content and Creating Elements**: Using `element.textContent` to add text directly to an HTML element rather than creating text nodes can sometimes be more concise and may offer performance benefits in more complex DOM manipulation.

- **Template Literals**: For generating HTML content, template literals can be a more readable and concise alternative, especially when coupled with `innerHTML`.

In conclusion, the benchmark effectively showcases the performance characteristics of distinct approaches to text node creation and manipulation, illustrating important considerations for JavaScript developers looking to optimize DOM interactions.

Related benchmarks:

createTextNode vs nodeValue (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: createTextNode("test") vs createTextNode("") vs createTextNode(null) vs createTextNode(undefined)

Created: one month ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

createTextNode("test")

createTextNode("")

createTextNode(null)

createTextNode(undefined)

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated one month ago):