refactor(runtime): make WeakMap obsolete

[danielleroux]

What is the current behavior?

GitHub Issue Number: Fixes #6148

What is the new behavior?

Remove WeakMap and hold each HostRef on the actual DOM Element. Which makes the Weakmap itself not necessary anymore.

Issue to discuss:

• Circular structure of HTMLElement (element -> $hostRef$ -> $hostElement$ -> $hostRef$ -> ...) Solved by using getHostRef
• Add HostRef (containing vdom structure) to regular DOM (Performance ?) => Checked the performance haven't found any issues yet. Solved by using getHostRef
• WebDriver.IO cannot convert element to JSON (Circular structure of HTMLElement) which results in failing tests atm. Solved by using getHostRef

Documentation

Does this introduce a breaking change?

• Yes
• No

Testing

Use existing tests, not added new ones.

[christian-bromann]

Circular structure of HTMLElement

Could we put it behind a simple getHostRef function to avoid this?

• Add HostRef (containing vdom structure) to regular DOM (Performance ?)

Not sure about this. Again, if we put it behind a function it may just end up being a referenced stored in memory which I don't think has a big impact.

• WebDriver.IO cannot convert element to JSON (Circular structure of HTMLElement) which results in failing tests atm.

I can take a look at it 😉

@johnjenkins thoughts?

[johnjenkins]

Could we put it behind a simple getHostRef function to avoid this?

Sounds workable to me?
Would we need to make the method name more internal-stencil-y? To make sure we don't cause any name clashes?
e.g. something like __stencil__getHostRef() ?

[danielleroux]

Use function call to resolve HostRef solves the circular structure 👍 Also the issue regarding webdriverio is fixed with the change.

[christian-bromann]

Two minor nits

[christian-bromann]

Ok, I just double check the code, can we apply this as well in the following places?

• src/hydrate/platform/index.ts
• src/testing/platform/testing-constants.ts
• src/testing/platform/testing-host-ref.ts
• src/testing/platform/testing-platform.ts

[danielleroux]

Ok, I just double check the code, can we apply this as well in the following places?

• src/hydrate/platform/index.ts
• src/testing/platform/testing-constants.ts
• src/testing/platform/testing-host-ref.ts
• src/testing/platform/testing-platform.ts

Sure! Makes sense to remove the weakmaps there too.

[danielleroux]

Not sure if the return value as weakmap is somewhere used, i tried to check the code but couldnt find any references which depends on the return value.

[christian-bromann]

Yeah, I think it doesn't have any impact.

[christian-bromann]

Thank you so much, this is awesome 👍