innerHTML vs removeChild vs jquery.empty (v301)

Revision 301 of this benchmark created on

Description

Which method to remove all content from an element is fastest?

Updated 2013-12-13: make sure that there actually are elements to be deleted; jsperf setup does NOT run before each test, but before each test LOOP!!

Preparation HTML

<div id="box" style="display:none;"></div>
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.0.3/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>
var fragment = document.createDocumentFragment();
for (var i=0;i<1000;i++){
    var c   = document.createElement('div');
    c.textContent = 'siodfj'+Date.now();
    fragment .appendChild(c);
}
function clearChildren(el) {
  var child;
  while(child=el.firstChild)
    el.removeChild(child);
}
var box = document.getElementById('box');
function reset(ignore) {
   if (!ignore && box.childNodes.length > 0) throw 'child nodes not cleared!';
   box.appendChild(fragment.cloneNode());
}
</script>

Setup

reset(true);

Test runner

Ready to run.

Testing in
TestOps/sec
removeChild reversed
for (var i = box.childNodes.length - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
  box.removeChild(box.childNodes[i]);
}
reset();
 
ready
innerHTML
box.innerHTML = '';
reset();
 
ready
jQuery empty
$(box).empty();
reset();
 
ready
remove firstChild
while (box.firstChild) {
        box.removeChild(box.firstChild);
}
reset();
 
ready
remove lastChild
while (box.lastChild) {
        box.removeChild(box.lastChild);
}
reset();
 
ready
remove firstChild function
clearChildren(box);
reset();
 
ready
remove firstChild with var
while (i=box.firstChild) {
        box.removeChild(i);
}
reset();
 
ready
remove firstChild with null check
while (box.firstChild !== null) {
        box.removeChild(box.firstChild);
}
reset();
ready

Revisions

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