Benchmark: using getAttribute vs property to access an element's href

HTML Preparation code:

hi
<a id="yes" href="/okay">go here!!!! jkkjkkjjj don't</a>

Tests:

getAttribute
const element = document.getElementById('yes'); let i = 1000; while (i--) { // here let attr = element.getAttribute('href'); console.log(attr); }
property
const element = document.getElementById('yes'); let i = 1000; while (i--) { // here 2 let attr = element.href; console.log(attr); }

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
getAttribute
property

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated 28 days ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

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

**Benchmark Definition**
The benchmark measures two approaches to access an element's `href` attribute: using `getAttribute()` or accessing it directly through the property (`href`). The goal is to determine which approach is faster, more efficient, and suitable for a specific use case.

**Options Compared**

1. **Using `getAttribute()`**: This method retrieves the value of a named attribute from an element's DOM object. It takes two arguments: the element and the attribute name.
2. **Accessing through property (`href`)**: This approach directly accesses the `href` attribute as a property of the element's DOM object.

**Pros and Cons**

* Using `getAttribute()`:
	+ Pros: This method is widely supported across different browsers and versions, making it more compatible.
	+ Cons: It may be slower due to the additional overhead of calling a function to retrieve the attribute value.
* Accessing through property (`href`):
	+ Pros: Directly accessing an attribute as a property can be faster since there's no function call involved.
	+ Cons: This approach might not work in older browsers or versions that don't support this syntax.

**Library and Special JS Feature**
There is no specific library used in this benchmark, but it does utilize the `document.getElementById()` method to retrieve an HTML element by its ID. The `document` object is a fundamental part of JavaScript and provides access to various web page elements.

**Other Considerations**

When accessing attributes or properties through the DOM, consider the following:

* Browser support: Ensure compatibility with older browsers using alternative methods like `getAttribute()` or property access.
* Performance: Measure the execution time for different approaches in your specific use case to determine the most efficient method.
* Readability and maintainability: Choose a method that is easy to understand and maintain, especially in complex codebases.

**Alternatives**

Other alternatives to measure attribute or property access might include:

* Using a library like jQuery, which provides its own versions of `getAttribute()` and property access.
* Comparing different DOM traversal methods, such as using `querySelectorAll()`, `getElementsByTagName()`, or `getElementsByClassName()`.
* Measuring the performance of accessing attributes or properties through a custom-made function.

If you're interested in exploring more benchmarks like this one, you can check out MeasureThat.net's collection of JavaScript microbenchmarks.

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 4 months ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:128.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/128.0

Browser/OS: Firefox 128 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
getAttribute	172.7 Ops/sec
property	140.3 Ops/sec

Related benchmarks:

using getAttribute vs property to access an element's href (version: 0)

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Comparing performance of: getAttribute vs property

Created: 6 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

getAttribute

property

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated 28 days ago):