Throttle decorator

Create a "throttling" decorator throttle(f, ms) -- that returns a wrapper, passing the call to f at maximum once per ms milliseconds. Those calls that fall into the "cooldown" period, are ignored.

The difference with debounce -- if an ignored call is the last during the cooldown, then it executes at the end of the delay.

Let's check the real-life application to better understand that requirement and to see where it comes from.

For instance, we want to track mouse movements.

In browser we can setup a function to run at every mouse micro-movement and get the pointer location as it moves. During an active mouse usage, this function usually runs very frequently, can be something like 100 times per second (every 10 ms).

The tracking function should update some information on the web-page.

Updating function update() is too heavy to do it on every micro-movement. There is also no sense in making it more often than once per 100ms.

So we'll assign throttle(update, 100) as the function to run on each mouse move instead of the original update(). The decorator will be called often, but update() will be called at maximum once per 100ms.

Visually, it will look like this:

For the first mouse movement the decorated variant passes the call to update. That's important, the user sees our reaction to his move immediately.
Then as the mouse moves on, until 100ms nothing happens. The decorated variant ignores calls.
At the end of 100ms -- one more update happens with the last coordinates.
Then, finally, the mouse stops somewhere. The decorated variant waits until 100ms expire and then runs update runs with last coordinates. So, perhaps the most important, the final mouse coordinates are processed.

A code example:

function f(a) {
  console.log(a)
};

// f1000 passes calls to f at maximum once per 1000 ms
let f1000 = throttle(f, 1000);

f1000(1); // shows 1
f1000(2); // (throttling, 1000ms not out yet)
f1000(3); // (throttling, 1000ms not out yet)

// when 1000 ms time out...
// ...outputs 3, intermediate value 2 was ignored

P.S. Arguments and the context this passed to f1000 should be passed to the original f.

2.2 KiB Raw Blame History

Throttle decorator

2.2 KiB

Raw Blame History