to-key

Convert any value to a string that can be used as the key of an object.

Install with npm

npm i to-key --save

Usage

var toKey = require('to-key');

toKey({foo: ['bar', {baz: {fex: 'fex'}}], one: 'two'});
//=> 'foobarbazfexfexonetwo'

This can be used for caching results when the results are predictable based on user input or other settings.

Example

We'll assume that someFn in the example does some heavy processing on whatever arguments are passed that can be avoided if we can instead return the cached value of a previous call.

var cache = {};
function myApp(one, two, three) {
  var key = toKey([].slice.call(arguments));
  if (cache.hasOwnProperty(key)) {
    return cache[key];
  }

  var result = someFn(one, two, three);
  cache[key] = result;
  return result;
}

Why do this?

Given the following:

• A is time it takes (to-key or whatever you use) to stringify any arguments are passed
• B is the amount of time it takes to retrieve a stored value from the cache
• C is the time it takes your application to process arguments and store a new value on the cache

It's a good approach when (A + B) < C. In my applications. You can also use logic that conditionally uses cached results based on the complexity of the arguments passed.

Run tests

Install dev dependencies:

npm i -d && npm test

Contributing

Pull requests and stars are always welcome. For bugs and feature requests, please create an issue

Author

Jon Schlinkert

• github/jonschlinkert
• twitter/jonschlinkert

License

Copyright (c) 2015 Jon Schlinkert
Released under the MIT license

This file was generated by verb on February 16, 2015.