Benchmark: innerhtml vs removechild vs remove(firstChild) vs remove(lastChild)

HTML Preparation code:

<div id="container"></div>

Script Preparation code:

var node = document.getElementById('container');

for(var i = 0; i < 1000; i++) node.appendChild(document.createElement('div'));

Tests:

removeChild
var node = document.getElementById('container'); while(node.firstChild) node.removeChild(node.firstChild)
remove
var node = document.getElementById('container'); while(node.firstChild) node.lastChild.remove()
remove (last)
var node = document.getElementById('container'); while(node.firstChild) node.firstChild.remove()

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
removeChild
remove
remove (last)

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated 26 days ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

**Overview of the Benchmark**

The provided benchmark measures the performance difference between three approaches to remove child nodes from an HTML element:

1. `removeChild()`: Removing the first child node using this method.
2. `remove()` (using `lastChild`): Removing the last child node using this method.
3. `remove(firstChild)` (using `firstChild` property): Removing the first child node by accessing its `remove()` method directly.

**Benchmark Definition JSON**

The benchmark definition JSON contains the following information:

* `Name`: The name of the benchmark, which is "innerhtml vs removechild vs remove(firstChild) vs remove(lastChild)".
* `Script Preparation Code`: A JavaScript code snippet that sets up a container element and appends 1000 child nodes to it using `appendChild()`.
* `Html Preparation Code`: The HTML code for the container element.

**Individual Test Cases**

The benchmark consists of three individual test cases, each representing one of the three approaches to remove child nodes:

1. **removeChild**: Removes the first child node using `removeChild()` method.
	* Benchmark Definition: `while(node.firstChild) node.removeChild(node.firstChild)`
2. **remove**: Removes the last child node using the `lastChild` property and its `remove()` method.
	* Benchmark Definition: `while(node.firstChild) node.lastChild.remove()`
3. **remove (last)**: Removes the first child node by accessing its `remove()` method directly through the `firstChild` property.
	* Benchmark Definition: `while(node.firstChild) node.firstChild.remove()`

**Options Compared**

The benchmark compares the performance of three approaches to remove child nodes:

**Pros and Cons**

Here are some pros and cons of each approach:

1. **removeChild()**:
	* Pros: Generally faster and more efficient, as it avoids unnecessary iterations.
	* Cons: May not be as intuitive for developers who are not familiar with the `removeChild()` method.
2. **remove() (using lastChild)**:
	* Pros: More intuitive for developers who are used to using `lastChild` to access child nodes.
	* Cons: May be slower than `removeChild()`, especially for large datasets, as it involves an additional property access.
3. **remove(firstChild)**:
	* Pros: Avoids the unnecessary iteration and property access of `remove()` (using lastChild).
	* Cons: Less intuitive for developers who are not familiar with accessing child nodes through their properties.

**Library and Special JS Feature**

The benchmark uses no external libraries, but it does use some special JavaScript features:

1. **`lastChild` property**: This property is used to access the last child node of an element.
2. **`remove()` method on child nodes**: Some child nodes have a `remove()` method that can be used to remove them from their parent elements.

**Other Alternatives**

Some alternative approaches to removing child nodes include:

1. Using `innerHTML` and `createElement()` to create new content, rather than removing old content.
2. Using `appendChild()` with an empty node to add new content without removing existing content.
3. Using a different data structure or algorithm that avoids the need for frequent removal of elements.

**Conclusion**

The benchmark provides a useful comparison of three approaches to remove child nodes from HTML elements: `removeChild()`, `remove()` (using lastChild), and `remove(firstChild)`. By understanding the pros and cons of each approach, developers can choose the most efficient and intuitive method for their specific use cases.

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 3 years ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.14; rv:89.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/89.0

Browser/OS: Firefox 89 on Mac OS X 10.14

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
removeChild	2528955.5 Ops/sec
remove	2888628.5 Ops/sec
remove (last)	2612774.0 Ops/sec

Related benchmarks:

innerhtml vs removechild vs remove(firstChild) vs remove(lastChild) (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: removeChild vs remove vs remove (last)

Created: 3 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

removeChild

remove

remove (last)

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated 26 days ago):