Benchmark: parentElement vs parentNode (multiple)

HTML Preparation code:

<div>
  <div id="div">.</div>
</div>

Script Preparation code:

var div = document.getElementById('div');

Tests:

parentElement
let parent = div; while (parent = parent.parentElement);
parentNode
let parent = div; while (parent = parent.parentNode);

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
parentElement
parentNode

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/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/17.2.1 Safari/605.1.15

Browser/OS: Safari 17 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
parentElement	17294710.0 Ops/sec
parentNode	20844090.0 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

**What is tested?**

MeasureThat.net is testing the performance difference between using `parentElement` and `parentNode` to traverse an HTML element's DOM tree in a JavaScript loop.

Specifically, the benchmark measures how many executions per second (FPS) each approach can perform on a desktop Safari 17 browser running on Mac OS X 10.15.7.

**Options compared**

Two options are being compared:

1. **parentNode**: This method uses the `parentNode` property to traverse up the DOM tree from an element.
2. **parentElement**: This method uses the `parentElement` property, which is specifically designed for traversing the DOM tree in a way that is similar to `parentNode`, but with some differences.

**Pros and cons of each approach**

**parentNode**

Pros:

* Well-established and widely supported
* Can be used to traverse any part of the DOM tree

Cons:

* May cause more overhead due to the use of a separate property (`parentNode`) rather than leveraging the inherent behavior of element nodes in DOM traversal.
* May not be optimized for modern browsers, leading to potential performance differences.

**parentElement**

Pros:

* Optimized for modern browser performance and may be faster in certain cases
* Specifically designed for traversing the DOM tree, reducing overhead

Cons:

* Less widely supported (although still widely adopted) compared to `parentNode`
* May not work correctly in older browsers or specific edge cases.

**Other considerations**

The choice between `parentElement` and `parentNode` can depend on the specific requirements of your application. If you need to traverse any part of the DOM tree, `parentNode` might be a safer bet. However, if you're targeting modern browsers and want optimized performance for traversing only parent-child relationships, `parentElement` could be a better choice.

**Library usage**

None

**Special JS features or syntax**

There is no specific JavaScript feature or syntax used in this benchmark. It simply demonstrates the difference between two DOM traversal methods in JavaScript.

**Alternative approaches**

If you need to traverse the DOM tree but don't want to use `parentElement` and `parentNode`, there are alternative approaches:

1. **querySelectorAll**: This method returns all elements matching a given CSS selector within an element's subtree. While it provides more control over selection, it can be slower than traversing directly with `parentElement`.
2. **ElementIterator**: Some browsers (like Chrome) have introduced the `ElementIterator` interface, which allows for more flexible DOM traversal. However, its usage is still relatively niche and might not be supported by all browsers.

In summary, MeasureThat.net's benchmark highlights the performance difference between using `parentElement` and `parentNode` to traverse an HTML element's DOM tree in a JavaScript loop. The choice between these two approaches depends on your specific requirements and target browser environments.

Related benchmarks:

parentElement vs parentNode (multiple) (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: parentElement vs parentNode

Created: 2 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

parentElement

parentNode

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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