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What is the best way to process large arrays in Javascript?

I have a React JS app that uses an API to pull a JSON object that contains an array of 10,000+ objects. This array is then used to populate a table, with certain filters and options from checkboxes, dropdowns, that can manipulate the data. When tapping a checkbox, filter, sort, reduce functions are used on the array to return a specific subset of the array that can populate the table again.
There are 10-15 options to choose from, so 10-15 filter/map/reduce functions running on the data each time a box is checked.
These filtering options now cause a noticeable lag between clicking on the checkbox and changing the table. The app freezes while it calculates the new array. Is there a more efficient flow to filter my data?
Some example functions below below:
//gameData is an array of 10k+ objects
let inData = gameData
const options = {
dateToTime: new Date('2020-03-01'),
servers:[1,2,3],
maps:['A','B','C']
}
function groupByArray(array, key) {
return array.reduce(function (rv, x) {
let v = key instanceof Function ? key(x) : x[key];
let el = rv.find((r) => r && r.key === v);
if (el) {
el.values.push(x);
} else {
rv.push({ key: v, values: [x] });
} return rv;
}, []);
}
const gamesGrouped = groupByArray(inData, 'gameid')
inData = gamesGrouped.filter(a => a.playername != "new")
inData = inData.filter(game => {
const thisTime = new Date(game.creationtime)
return (thisTime < options.dateToTime)
})
inData = inData.filter(game => options.servers.includes(game.serverip))
inData.filter(game => options.maps.includes(game.map))
Thanks in advance!

I would say it is impossible to give general answer how to process array data, but I can give some pointers.
be careful when nesting loops (to avoid repeating same iterations)
avoid overheads, eg. find() can be replaced with for loop which is quite faster (I know it is easier to write find(), but you are looking at roughly 30% performance increase by switching it to for loop)
paginate - you can process array in chunks using generators (eg. if you need to show only first 10 results, that would be faster then processing all of them)
Also code that you provided is bit cryptic, you might want to use better naming.
Here is performance comparison for groupByArray() function: https://jsbench.me/t7kltjm1sy/1
Worth noting, whenever I deal with performance sensitive situations I keep code to the VanillaJS as close as possible, because with large data sets even slight function overhead can be noticeable.

JavaScript comma separated join a set number of elements in a Array without jQuery

I'm not sure if jQuery would be a factor but since I'm using Vue and Quasar I wanted to put that out front to not use it.
I know that if I want to convert an Array to a comma separated string I would use
Array.join(',')
and that would give me a nice comma separated string. But is there a way without doing a loop to only join a set number of elements?
I need to take an array of publication ID's remove the duplicates and then only combine 200 of them. My list could be as long as 10,000 but the web service that I am sending the data can only handle 200 at a time.
30310060,30166592,29704517,29662190,29533787,28114741,27456065,27208808,26208975
and then go back and pick up another 200
I need to convert the string to JSON to send it to the web server. Thanks for the help

Will something like this work?
joinFirstN = function(array,n,separator){
sample = array.slice(0,n);
return(sample.join(separator);)
}
This slices the first n elements into an array, and then joins it into a string.
So you would do something like:
joinFirstN(array,200,",");

If you want to avoid using anything but ES6 (no libraries), you can use an object to de-dupe values in an array. Then, you can use an async function to recursively take any number of elements at a time, submit them to the server, and after you get a response, submit the next batch. This same pattern could be extended to submit multiple batches at once if your server can handle that, vs. doing each batch serially.
//Basically build an object out of the ids. This will dedupe them all.
//Finally, only take the keys (or values, whichever)
const uniqueIds = Object.keys(ids.reduce((ids, id) => {
ids[id] = id
return ids
}, {}))
const submitInBatches = async (ids, batchSize) => {
//If you have no ids, you're done.
if (ids.length === 0) return
//Get the next batch of ids, and submit them
batch = ids.slice(0, batchSize)
const results = await fetch(`/your/service?${batch.join(',')}`)
//Do something with the results
//Then take all of the remaining ids and recursively call them
return submitInBatches(ids.slice(batchSize), batchSize)
}
submitInBatches(uniqueIds, 200)

Apply variable number of filter conditions to a javascript array while traversing it only once?

I have a javascript array of nested data that holds data which will be displayed to the user.
The user would like to be able to apply 0 to n filter conditions to the data they are looking at.
In order to meet this goal, I need to first find elements that match the 0 to n filter conditions, then perform some data manipulation on those entries. An obvious way of solving this is to have several filter statements back to back (with a conditional check inside them to see if the filter needs to be applied) and then a map function at the end like this:
var firstFilterList = _.filter(myData, firstFilterFunction);
var secondFilterList = _.filter(firstFilterList, secondFilterFunction);
var thirdFilterList = _.filter(secondFilterList, thirdFilterFunction);
var finalList = _.map(thirdFilterList, postFilterFunction);
In this case however, the javascript array would be traversed 4 times. A way to get around this would be to have a single filter that checks all 3 (or 0 to n) conditions before determining if there is a match, and then, inside the filter at the end of the function, doing the data manipulation, however this seems a bit hacky and makes the "filter" responsible for more than one thing, which is not ideal. The upside would be that the javascript Array is traversed only once.
Is there a "best practices" way of doing what I am trying to accomplish?
EDIT: I am also interested in hearing if it is considered bad practice to perform data manipulation (adding fields to javascript objects etc...) within a filter function.

You could collect all filter functions in an array and check every filter with the actual data set and filter by the result. Then take your mapping function to get the wanted result.
var data = [ /* ... */ ],
filterFn1 = () => Math.round(Math.random()),
filterFn2 = (age) => age > 35,
filterFn3 = year => year === 1955,
fns = [filterFn1, filterFn2, filterFn2],
whatever = ... // final function for mapping
result = data
.filter(x => fns.every(f => f(x)))
.map(whatever);

One thing you can do is to combine all those filter functions into one single function, with reduce, then call filter with the combined function.
var combined = [firstFilterFunction, seconfFilterFunction, ...]
.reduce((x, y) => (z => x(z) && y(z)));
var filtered = myData.filter(combined);

Is there a way to map a value in an object to the index of an array in javascript?

Prepending that a solution only needs to work in the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, and Safari as a bonus.
-
I am trying to use an associative array for a large data set with knockout. My first try made it a true associative array:
[1: {Object}, 3: {Object},...,n:{Object}]
but knockout was not happy with looping over that. So I tried a cheating way, hoping that:
[undefined, {Object}, undefined, {Object},...,{Object}]
where the location in the array is the PK ID from the database table. This array is about 3.2k items large, and would be iterated over around every 10 seconds, hence the need for speed. I tried doing this with a splice, e.g.
$.each(data, function (index, item) {
self.myArray.splice(item.PKID, 0, new Object(item));
}
but splice does not create indices, so since my first PKID is 1, it is still inserted at myArray[0] regardless. If my first PK was 500, it would start at 0 still.
My second thought is to initialize the array with var myArray = new Array(maxSize) but that seems heavy handed. I would love to be able to use some sort of map function to do this, but I'm not really sure how to make the key value translate into an index value in javascript.
My third thought was to keep two arrays, one for easy look up and the other to store the actual values. So it combines the first two solutions, almost, by finding the index of the object in the first example and doing a lookup with that in the second example. This seems to be how many people manage associative arrays in knockout, but with the array size and the fact that it's a live updating app with a growing data set seems memory intensive and not easily manageable when new information is added.
Also, maybe I'm hitting the mark wrong here? We're putting these into the DOM via knockout and managing with a library called isotope, and as I mentioned it updates about every 10 seconds. That's why I need the fast look up but knockout doesn't want to play with my hash table attempts.
--
clarity edits:
so on initial load the whole array is loaded up (which is where the new Array(maxLength) would go, then every 10 seconds anything that has changed is loaded back. That is the information I'm trying to quickly update.
--
knockout code:
<!-- ko foreach: {data: myArray(), afterRender: setInitialTileColor } -->
<div class="tile" data-bind="attr: {id: 'tileID' + $data.PKID()}">
<div class="content">
</div>
</div>
<!-- /ko -->
Then on updates the hope is:
$.each(data.Updated, function (index, item) {
var obj = myModel.myArray()[item.PKID];
//do updates here - need to check what kind of change, how long it's been since a change, etc
}

Here is a solution how to populate array items with correct indexes, so it doesn't start from the first one (0 (zero) I meant)
just use in loop
arr[obj.PKID] = obj;
and if your framework is smart (to use forEach but not for) it will start from your index (like 500 in case below)
http://jsfiddle.net/0axo9Lgp/
var data = [], new_data = [];
// Generate sample array of objects with index field
for (var i = 500; i < 3700; i++) {
data.push({
PKID: i,
value: '1'
});
}
data.forEach(function(item) {
new_data[item.PKID] = item;
});
console.log(new_data);
console.log(new_data.length); // 3700 but real length is 3200 other items are undefined

It's not an easy problem to solve. I'm assuming you've tried (or can't try) the obvious stuff like reducing the number of items per page and possibly using a different framework like React or Mithril.
There are a couple of basic optimizations I can suggest.
Don't use the framework's each. It's either slower than or same as the native Array method forEach, either way it's slower than a basic for loop.
Don't loop over the array over and over again looking for every item whose data has been updated. When you send your response of data updates, send along an array of the PKIds of the updated item. Then, do a single loop:
.
var indexes = []
var updated = JSON.parse(response).updated; // example array of updated pkids.
for(var i=0;i<allElements.length;i++){
if(updated.indexOf(allElements[i].pkid)>-1)
indexes.push(i);
}
So, basically the above assumes you have a simple array of objects, where each object has a property called pkid that stores its ID. When you get a response, you loop over this array once, storing the indexes of all items that match a pk-id in the array of updated pk-ids.
Then you only have to loop over the indexes array and use its elements as indexes on the allElements array to apply the direct updates.

If your indexes are integers in a reasonable range, you can just use an array. It does not have to be completely populated, you can use the if binding to filter out unused entries.
Applying updates is just a matter of indexing the array.
http://jsfiddle.net/0axo9Lgp/2/

You may want to consider using the publish-subscribe pattern. Have each item subscribe to its unique ID. When an item needs updating it will get the event and update itself. This library may be helpful for this. It doesn't depend upon browser events, just arrays so it should be fairly fast.

Display posts in descending posted order

I'm trying to test out Firebase to allow users to post comments using push. I want to display the data I retrieve with the following;
fbl.child('sell').limit(20).on("value", function(fbdata) {
// handle data display here
}
The problem is the data is returned in order of oldest to newest - I want it in reversed order. Can Firebase do this?

Since this answer was written, Firebase has added a feature that allows ordering by any child or by value. So there are now four ways to order data: by key, by value, by priority, or by the value of any named child. See this blog post that introduces the new ordering capabilities.
The basic approaches remain the same though:
1. Add a child property with the inverted timestamp and then order on that.
2. Read the children in ascending order and then invert them on the client.
Firebase supports retrieving child nodes of a collection in two ways:
by name
by priority
What you're getting now is by name, which happens to be chronological. That's no coincidence btw: when you push an item into a collection, the name is generated to ensure the children are ordered in this way. To quote the Firebase documentation for push:
The unique name generated by push() is prefixed with a client-generated timestamp so that the resulting list will be chronologically-sorted.
The Firebase guide on ordered data has this to say on the topic:
How Data is Ordered
By default, children at a Firebase node are sorted lexicographically by name. Using push() can generate child names that naturally sort chronologically, but many applications require their data to be sorted in other ways. Firebase lets developers specify the ordering of items in a list by specifying a custom priority for each item.
The simplest way to get the behavior you want is to also specify an always-decreasing priority when you add the item:
var ref = new Firebase('https://your.firebaseio.com/sell');
var item = ref.push();
item.setWithPriority(yourObject, 0 - Date.now());
Update
You'll also have to retrieve the children differently:
fbl.child('sell').startAt().limitToLast(20).on('child_added', function(fbdata) {
console.log(fbdata.exportVal());
})
In my test using on('child_added' ensures that the last few children added are returned in reverse chronological order. Using on('value' on the other hand, returns them in the order of their name.
Be sure to read the section "Reading ordered data", which explains the usage of the child_* events to retrieve (ordered) children.
A bin to demonstrate this: http://jsbin.com/nonawe/3/watch?js,console

Since firebase 2.0.x you can use limitLast() to achieve that:
fbl.child('sell').orderByValue().limitLast(20).on("value", function(fbdataSnapshot) {
// fbdataSnapshot is returned in the ascending order
// you will still need to order these 20 items in
// in a descending order
}
Here's a link to the announcement: More querying capabilities in Firebase

To augment Frank's answer, it's also possible to grab the most recent records--even if you haven't bothered to order them using priorities--by simply using endAt().limit(x) like this demo:
var fb = new Firebase(URL);
// listen for all changes and update
fb.endAt().limit(100).on('value', update);
// print the output of our array
function update(snap) {
var list = [];
snap.forEach(function(ss) {
var data = ss.val();
data['.priority'] = ss.getPriority();
data['.name'] = ss.name();
list.unshift(data);
});
// print/process the results...
}
Note that this is quite performant even up to perhaps a thousand records (assuming the payloads are small). For more robust usages, Frank's answer is authoritative and much more scalable.
This brute force can also be optimized to work with bigger data or more records by doing things like monitoring child_added/child_removed/child_moved events in lieu of value, and using a debounce to apply DOM updates in bulk instead of individually.
DOM updates, naturally, are a stinker regardless of the approach, once you get into the hundreds of elements, so the debounce approach (or a React.js solution, which is essentially an uber debounce) is a great tool to have.

There is really no way but seems we have the recyclerview we can have this
query=mCommentsReference.orderByChild("date_added");
query.keepSynced(true);
// Initialize Views
mRecyclerView = (RecyclerView) view.findViewById(R.id.recyclerView);
mManager = new LinearLayoutManager(getContext());
// mManager.setReverseLayout(false);
mManager.setReverseLayout(true);
mManager.setStackFromEnd(true);
mRecyclerView.setHasFixedSize(true);
mRecyclerView.setLayoutManager(mManager);

I have a date variable (long) and wanted to keep the newest items on top of the list. So what I did was:
Add a new long field 'dateInverse'
Add a new method called 'getDateInverse', which just returns: Long.MAX_VALUE - date;
Create my query with: .orderByChild("dateInverse")
Presto! :p

You are searching limitTolast(Int x) .This will give you the last "x" higher elements of your database (they are in ascending order) but they are the "x" higher elements
if you got in your database {10,300,150,240,2,24,220}
this method:
myFirebaseRef.orderByChild("highScore").limitToLast(4)
will retrive you : {150,220,240,300}

In Android there is a way to actually reverse the data in an Arraylist of objects through the Adapter. In my case I could not use the LayoutManager to reverse the results in descending order since I was using a horizontal Recyclerview to display the data. Setting the following parameters to the recyclerview messed up my UI experience:
llManager.setReverseLayout(true);
llManager.setStackFromEnd(true);
The only working way I found around this was through the BindViewHolder method of the RecyclerView adapter:
#Override
public void onBindViewHolder(final RecyclerView.ViewHolder holder, int position) {
final SuperPost superPost = superList.get(getItemCount() - position - 1);
}
Hope this answer will help all the devs out there who are struggling with this issue in Firebase.

Firebase: How to display a thread of items in reverse order with a limit for each request and an indicator for a "load more" button.
This will get the last 10 items of the list
FBRef.child("childName")
.limitToLast(loadMoreLimit) // loadMoreLimit = 10 for example
This will get the last 10 items. Grab the id of the last record in the list and save for the load more functionality. Next, convert the collection of objects into and an array and do a list.reverse().
LOAD MORE Functionality: The next call will do two things, it will get the next sequence of list items based on the reference id from the first request and give you an indicator if you need to display the "load more" button.
this.FBRef
.child("childName")
.endAt(null, lastThreadId) // Get this from the previous step
.limitToLast(loadMoreLimit+2)
You will need to strip the first and last item of this object collection. The first item is the reference to get this list. The last item is an indicator for the show more button.
I have a bunch of other logic that will keep everything clean. You will need to add this code only for the load more functionality.
list = snapObjectAsArray; // The list is an array from snapObject
lastItemId = key; // get the first key of the list
if (list.length < loadMoreLimit+1) {
lastItemId = false;
}
if (list.length > loadMoreLimit+1) {
list.pop();
}
if (list.length > loadMoreLimit) {
list.shift();
}
// Return the list.reverse() and lastItemId
// If lastItemId is an ID, it will be used for the next reference and a flag to show the "load more" button.
}

I'm using ReactFire for easy Firebase integration.
Basically, it helps me storing the datas into the component state, as an array. Then, all I have to use is the reverse() function (read more)
Here is how I achieve this :
import React, { Component, PropTypes } from 'react';
import ReactMixin from 'react-mixin';
import ReactFireMixin from 'reactfire';
import Firebase from '../../../utils/firebaseUtils'; // Firebase.initializeApp(config);
#ReactMixin.decorate(ReactFireMixin)
export default class Add extends Component {
constructor(args) {
super(args);
this.state = {
articles: []
};
}
componentWillMount() {
let ref = Firebase.database().ref('articles').orderByChild('insertDate').limitToLast(10);
this.bindAsArray(ref, 'articles'); // bind retrieved data to this.state.articles
}
render() {
return (
<div>
{
this.state.articles.reverse().map(function(article) {
return <div>{article.title}</div>
})
}
</div>
);
}
}

There is a better way. You should order by negative server timestamp. How to get negative server timestamp even offline? There is an hidden field which helps. Related snippet from documentation:
var offsetRef = new Firebase("https://<YOUR-FIREBASE-APP>.firebaseio.com/.info/serverTimeOffset");
offsetRef.on("value", function(snap) {
var offset = snap.val();
var estimatedServerTimeMs = new Date().getTime() + offset;
});

To add to Dave Vávra's answer, I use a negative timestamp as my sort_key like so
Setting
const timestamp = new Date().getTime();
const data = {
name: 'John Doe',
city: 'New York',
sort_key: timestamp * -1 // Gets the negative value of the timestamp
}
Getting
const ref = firebase.database().ref('business-images').child(id);
const query = ref.orderByChild('sort_key');
return $firebaseArray(query); // AngularFire function
This fetches all objects from newest to oldest. You can also $indexOn the sortKey to make it run even faster

I had this problem too, I found a very simple solution to this that doesn't involved manipulating the data in anyway. If you are rending the result to the DOM, in a list of some sort. You can use flexbox and setup a class to reverse the elements in their container.
.reverse {
display: flex;
flex-direction: column-reverse;
}

myarray.reverse(); or this.myitems = items.map(item => item).reverse();

I did this by prepend.
query.orderByChild('sell').limitToLast(4).on("value", function(snapshot){
snapshot.forEach(function (childSnapshot) {
// PREPEND
});
});

Someone has pointed out that there are 2 ways to do this:
Manipulate the data client-side
Make a query that will order the data
The easiest way that I have found to do this is to use option 1, but through a LinkedList. I just append each of the objects to the front of the stack. It is flexible enough to still allow the list to be used in a ListView or RecyclerView. This way even though they come in order oldest to newest, you can still view, or retrieve, newest to oldest.

You can add a column named orderColumn where you save time as
Long refrenceTime = "large future time";
Long currentTime = "currentTime";
Long order = refrenceTime - currentTime;
now save Long order in column named orderColumn and when you retrieve data
as orderBy(orderColumn) you will get what you need.

just use reverse() on the array , suppose if you are storing the values to an array items[] then do a this.items.reverse()
ref.subscribe(snapshots => {
this.loading.dismiss();
this.items = [];
snapshots.forEach(snapshot => {
this.items.push(snapshot);
});
**this.items.reverse();**
},

For me it was limitToLast that worked. I also found out that limitLast is NOT a function:)
const query = messagesRef.orderBy('createdAt', 'asc').limitToLast(25);
The above is what worked for me.

PRINT in reverse order
Let's think outside the box... If your information will be printed directly into user's screen (without any content that needs to be modified in a consecutive order, like a sum or something), simply print from bottom to top.
So, instead of inserting each new block of content to the end of the print space (A += B), add that block to the beginning (A = B+A).
If you'll include the elements as a consecutive ordered list, the DOM can put the numbers for you if you insert each element as a List Item (<li>) inside an Ordered Lists (<ol>).
This way you save space from your database, avoiding unnecesary reversed data.