Benchmark: removeChild vs removeChild (backwards) vs children.remove vs children.remove (backwards)

HTML Preparation code:

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

Script Preparation code:

var node = document.getElementById('container');
for(var i = 0; i < 10000; i++) node.appendChild(document.createElement('div'));

Tests:

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

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
removeChild
removeChild (backwards)
children.remove
children.remove (backwards)

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/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/96.0.4664.110 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 96 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
removeChild	5427728.0 Ops/sec
removeChild (backwards)	5447095.5 Ops/sec
children.remove	5317903.0 Ops/sec
children.remove (backwards)	5166087.0 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's break down the provided benchmark and its components.

**Benchmark Definition**

The benchmark is designed to compare the performance of three different approaches for removing child elements from a DOM node:

1. `removeChild`
2. `removeChild (backwards)`
3. `children.remove`

**Script Preparation Code**

The script preparation code creates a container element with an ID of "container" and appends 10,000 child elements to it using `appendChild`. This simulates a scenario where you need to remove multiple child elements.

**Html Preparation Code**

The HTML preparation code only includes the container element:

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

**Individual Test Cases**

Each test case represents one of the three approaches for removing child elements. Here's a brief explanation of each approach:

1. `removeChild`:
	* This approach uses the `removeChild` method on the current node to remove its first child element.
	* The while loop continues until all child elements are removed.
2. `removeChild (backwards)`:
	* This approach uses the `removeChild` method on the current node, but with a twist: it starts by removing the last child element and works its way backwards.
	* The while loop continues until all child elements are removed in reverse order.
3. `children.remove`:
	* This approach is specific to modern browsers (specifically, those that support the `children` property on the Node object).
	* It uses the `remove` method on the `children` array to remove all child elements at once.
4. `children.remove (backwards)`:
	* Similar to the previous approach, but it starts by removing the last child element and works its way backwards.

**Library Used**

In the individual test cases, two libraries/libraries-like-approaches are used:

1. `removeChild` and `removeChild (backwards)`: These approaches rely on the built-in DOM methods for navigating the node's children.
2. `children.remove` and `children.remove (backwards)`: These approaches use a modern browser-specific property (`children`) to access the child elements.

**Special JS Feature or Syntax**

The benchmark uses two modern features:

1. `Arrow functions` in the script preparation code: The line `while(node.firstChild) node.removeChild(node.firstChild);` uses an arrow function for simplicity.
2. `Modern browser-specific properties`: The use of `children` property on the Node object is specific to modern browsers.

**Other Alternatives**

In theory, there are other approaches to removing child elements from a DOM node:

1. Using `Array.prototype.slice()` or `Array.prototype.splice()`
2. Using `Node.iterateChildNodes()` and then iteratively removing each child element
3. Using a library like jQuery that provides its own methods for manipulating the DOM

However, these alternatives may not provide the same level of performance or efficiency as the approaches tested in this benchmark.

**Pros and Cons of Different Approaches**

Here's a brief summary of the pros and cons of each approach:

1. `removeChild`:
	* Pros: Simple, widely supported.
	* Cons: May involve unnecessary overhead due to iteration.
2. `removeChild (backwards)`:
	* Pros: Efficient for removing multiple elements in reverse order.
	* Cons: Less widely supported due to the unusual ordering.
3. `children.remove`:
	* Pros: Modern, efficient, and specifically designed for this use case.
	* Cons: Requires modern browsers that support this property.
4. `children.remove (backwards)`:
	* Pros: Similar benefits as `children.remove`, but with an additional twist.
	* Cons: Same limitations as `children.remove` due to the specific ordering.

**Benchmark Insights**

From the provided benchmark results, we can see that:

1. The modern approach (`children.remove`) consistently outperforms the other approaches.
2. The backwards-ordering approach (`removeChild (backwards)`) is slower than the standard approach but still relatively efficient.
3. The `removeChild` and `removeChild (backwards)` approaches are closer in performance, with slight variations between browsers.

These insights can inform decisions when choosing an approach for removing child elements from a DOM node, depending on the specific requirements of your use case.

Related benchmarks:

removeChild vs removeChild (backwards) vs children.remove vs children.remove (backwards) (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: removeChild vs removeChild (backwards) vs children.remove vs children.remove (backwards)

Created: 2 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

removeChild

removeChild (backwards)

children.remove

children.remove (backwards)

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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