minimal-object-diff

Create and apply a tiny representation of diffs between two objects. Useful for sending diffs over a network

Motivation

The goal if minimal-object-diff is to generate a small representation of the diff between two objects in order to later send it over a network.

The use case in mind when writing was a game server. For a networked game you'll typically push down JSON to clients in order to update them on the world around them.

This library was created to power a simple utility for sending down the minimum amount of data necessary to keep a client up to date with its knowledge of world state.

To Install

$ npm install --save minimal-object-diff

Usage

// On our server
var objDiff = require('minimal-object-diff')
 
var oldClientKnowledge = { numBeavers: 50, foo: { bar: 'buzz' } }
var newClientKnowledge = { nothing: ':(' }
 
var patches = objDiff.diff(oldClientKnowledge, newClientKnowledge)
 
SendPatchesViaWebsocket(patches)

// Later on the client side
var objDiff = require('minimal-object-diff')
 
console.log(myOldClientKnowledge)
// { numBeavers: 50, foo: { bar: 'buzz' } }
 
var myNewClientKnowledge = objDiff.patch(myOldClientKnowledge, JSON.parse(patches))
console.log(myNewClientKnowledge)
// { nothing: ':(' }

Patch Format

var a = {
  name: 'Eugene',
  number: 42,
  tags: ['tag1', 'tag2', 'tag3'],
  scores: {
    tetris: 1000,
    carmageddon: 3
  }
}
 
var b = {
  name: 'Susan',
  number: 43,
  tags: ['tag1', 'tag4'],
  scores: {
    carmageddon: 3,
    zelda: 3000
  },
  age: 37
}
*/
 
console.log(objDiff.diff(a, b))
/*
{
  x: {
    name: 'Susan',
    number: 43,
    tags: ['tag1', 'tag4'],
    scores: {
      zelda: 3000
    },
    age: 37
  },
  d: ['scores.zelda']
}
*/

API

objDiff.diff(oldObj, newObj) -> patches

oldObj

Required Parameter

Type: Object

The old object that your patches later get applied to

newObj

Required Parameter

Type: Object

The new object that your patches will lead to

patches

Returned

Type: Object || Array || null

The patches that when applied transform oldObj -> newObj

objDiff.patch(oldObj, patches) -> newObj

oldObj

Required Parameter

Type: Object

The old object that your patches get applied to

patches

Required Parameter

Type: Object || Array || null

The patches that when applied transform oldObj -> newObj

newObj

Returned

The new object that your patches will lead to

TODO:

• Remove dependency on changeset
• Add benchmarks for JSON.stringify(patches).length
• Use dot prop strings instead of object keys for puts? Might save a few bytes per key

License

MIT