fast-max

🔥 The Quickest Way to get the Maximum Value of an Array of Numbers (Typed or Untyped)

install

npm install fast-max

why is it so much faster?

This library excels with typed arrays. It takes into account the theoretical maximum of a typed array. For example, if you have a Uint8Array, it's not possible for a maximum value to be greater than 255, so if we encounter a 255 in the array, we can stop searching for a higher value.

usage

getting maximum value of a normal array

const fastMax = require("fast-max"); // or import max from "fast-max";

const result = fastMax([0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]);
// result is 10

getting maximum value of a typed array

const fastMax = require("fast-max");

const pixel_values = Uint8Array.from([0, 128, 255, 34, ...]);
const result = fastMax(pixel_values);
// result is 255

setting theoretical maximum

If you know that an array's values can't exceed a specific number, you can set the theoretical_max.

const fastMax = require("fast-max");

const numbers = [0, 9, 4, 2, 10, ...]);
const result = fastMax(numbers, { theoretical_max: 10 });
// result is 10

no data value

If you want to ignore one or more specific values, you can set the no_data value.

const fastMax = require("fast-max");

const numbers = [99, 0, 7, 99, 5, ...];
const result = fastMax(numbers, { no_data: 99 });
// result is 7

const result = fastMax(numbers, { no_data: [7, 99] });
// result is still 5

performance tests

Here are test results comparing fast-max to two other popular libraries underscore and lodash. Tests have been conducted by creating an array of ten million random numbers from zero to the maximum theoretical value of the typed array.

array type	library	average duration in milliseconds
Int8Array	fast-max	< 1
Int8Array	lodash	20.9
Int8Array	underscore	14.3
Uint8Array	fast-max	0.1
Uint8Array	lodash	21.4
Uint8Array	underscore	14.3
Int16Array	fast-max	1.4
Int16Array	lodash	21
Int16Array	underscore	13.7
Uint16Array	fast-max	1.9
Uint16Array	lodash	20.9
Uint16Array	underscore	13.8
Int32Array	fast-max	31.2
Int32Array	lodash	21.2
Int32Array	underscore	14.2
Uint32Array	fast-max	109.8
Uint32Array	lodash	73.3
Uint32Array	underscore	15
BigInt64Array	fast-max	115.4
BigInt64Array	lodash	237.5
BigInt64Array	underscore	222.4
BigUint64Array	fast-max	113.9
BigUint64Array	lodash	236.4
BigUint64Array	underscore	219.7