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implementing $watch and performance degradation in AngularJS 1.7 during large data binding operations

👀 Views: 3474 đŸ’Ŧ Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-06-08
angularjs performance watch JavaScript

I've been working on this all day and I'm converting an old project and I'm deploying to production and I'm working on a personal project and I'm experiencing important performance degradation in my AngularJS 1.7 application when I use `$watch` on a large data array. The application becomes unresponsive when the array exceeds around 100 items. I have implemented a `watch` on an array of objects that are updated frequently in my application, and it seems like the digest cycle takes longer and longer as the array grows. Here's the relevant code snippet: ```javascript $scope.items = []; // This gets populated with around 100+ objects $scope.$watch('items', function(newValues, oldValues) { // Some operations that process the items console.log('Items updated:', newValues); }, true); // Deep watch enabled here ``` I have tried disabling the deep watch and using a simplified comparison, but that doesn't seem to work for my use case where I need to track changes in the objects' properties. I also attempted to use `throttle` to limit the number of digest cycles, but it hasn't made a noticeable improvement. Can anyone suggest optimization strategies or best practices for handling `$watch` with large datasets in AngularJS? Are there any alternatives I should consider for tracking changes without incurring such a heavy performance cost? Additionally, I've noticed the following behavior message intermittently in the console when interacting with the UI during these lag spikes: `Uncaught behavior: [$rootScope:infdig] 10 $digest() iterations reached. Aborting!` This confirms that the digest cycle is getting exploring. Any help would be greatly appreciated! This is part of a larger web app I'm building. Is there a better approach? The project is a application built with Javascript. Thanks for your help in advance! This issue appeared after updating to Javascript LTS. Cheers for any assistance!