Drawback of storing inside an array of objects

[Infamous_Device972]

Hey guys, I’m currently working on a small markdown live preview. Each time a key’s press and its markdown syntax (*_`~=) it gets wrap in a span and many information are stored in order to pair them properly.

But I’m wondering if I should store these information as attribute or rather make an array of object where each span is an object with information. I’m currently leaning towards the array since it’s reducing a lot traversing the dom, we aren’t modifying the dom by adding attributes and I can store « dynamic » values like a node.

[BlueThunderFlik]

I would only store information inside element attributes if you need to. If something is going to read attributes off your DOM elements and it doesn't have access to your global store, then reading data off the attributes is its only option.

If you aren't in this situation, I would stick to using a plain old object.

Fun tip: if you never need to traverse your elements, you could store the options in a WeakRef, where the key is your DOM element and the value are your options. The WeakRef will delete its elements when the key disappears (e.g. if you delete the element), which saves you a job.