Potential API Changes

[winstxnhdw]

This discussion will contain the future possible API changes to sgqr before v1.0.0.

[winstxnhdw]

Currently, sgqr directly wraps qrcode for QR code rendering. There are a few issues with this:

• We lose access to other conversion methods provided by qrcode
• We have to add a new entrypoint function for every new render method
• We are locked to qrcode

It may be better that instead of a generate_svg or generate_something entrypoint, we provide a single entrypoint/API for generating QR codes of any format.

import sgqr from 'sgqr'

const generate = sgqr.generate({
  number: '+6591234567',
  amount: '1.69'
})

const svg = await generate.to_svg()

const png = await generate.to_png()

The only issue I have with this is that it can lead to quite ugly code.

import sgqr from 'sgqr'

const generate = await sgqr.generate({
  number: '+6591234567',
  amount: '1.69'
}).to_svg()

[winstxnhdw]

Currently, sgqr is not optimised for batch generation. It's fast but it can really go faster. This is because I refuse to cache the CRC table in memory, and the library has to re-build the CRC table on every generate call. I did this because I don't think it's right for some library to store something you may not even need in memory forever.

import sgqr from 'sgqr'

for (let i = 0; i < 10000; i++) {
  const code = sgqr.generate({
    number: '+6591234567',
    amount: '1.69'
  })
}

So instead of the above, I am thinking of storing the table in a class and letting the GC handle the disposal of the CRC table. I have benchmarked this on JSPerf and at 100,000 requests, we do see about an 80% performance improvement.

import { SGQR } from 'sgqr'

const sgqr = new SGQR({
  number: '+6591234567',
  amount: '1.69'
})

for (let i = 0; i < 10000; i++) {
  const code = sgqr.generate()
}

However, it may lead to even more 'ugly' code.

import { SGQR } from 'sgqr'

const sgqr = await new SGQR({
  number: '+6591234567',
  amount: '1.69'
}).generate().to_svg().catch(console.error)

[winstxnhdw]

To be fair, the CRC table only takes up 512 bytes of memory, so maybe the trade-off is not worth it.

[winstxnhdw]

Maybe the CLI should be able to produce the QR code string as well as the image.

[winstxnhdw]

No idea how I missed this until now but I should move to camelCase.