circular-queue-react

High-performance circular buffer/queue for TypeScript and React. Zero dependencies (React optional) — perfect for logs, streaming data, rolling windows, and real-time UI updates.

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Features

• 🔄 CircularBuffer (Low-level) — direction-based circular buffer primitive (HEAD/TAIL)
• 📦 BufferManager (High-level) — convenient API (push/pop single or arrays, peek helpers, utilities)
• ⚛️ React Hook — useCircularBuffer for automatic re-rendering in React
• 🎯 Type-Safe — full TypeScript generics support
• ⚡ Fast — O(1) push/pop/peek operations
• 🪶 Zero Dependencies — pure TypeScript implementation (React is optional)
• 🔧 Flexible — logs, streaming feeds, caching, undo/redo, rolling averages, etc.

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Installation

npm install circular-queue-react
# or
yarn add circular-queue-react
# or
pnpm add circular-queue-react

React Support: React 16.8+, 17, 18, 19 ✅ (React is required only if you use useCircularBuffer.)

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Quick Start

1) CircularBuffer (Low-level API)

CircularBuffer is a minimal primitive:

• push(item, direction) — insert
• pop(direction) — remove 1
• get(direction, count?) — peek (non-destructive)
• iterable (oldest → newest)

import { CircularBuffer, Direction } from "circular-queue-react";

const buf = new CircularBuffer<string>(3);

// Push to TAIL (newest side)
buf.push("A", Direction.TAIL);
buf.push("B", Direction.TAIL);

// Push to HEAD (oldest side)
buf.push("Z", Direction.HEAD);

console.log(buf.get(Direction.HEAD)); // "Z" (oldest)
console.log(buf.get(Direction.TAIL)); // "B" (newest)

// Peek many
console.log(buf.get(Direction.HEAD, 2)); // ["Z","A"] (oldest -> newer)
console.log(buf.get(Direction.TAIL, 2)); // ["B","A"] (newest -> older)

// Iterate (oldest -> newest)
for (const x of buf) console.log(x);

// Pop
console.log(buf.pop(Direction.HEAD)); // removes oldest ("Z")
console.log(buf.pop(Direction.TAIL)); // removes newest ("B")

// Resize (logical capacity)
buf.resize(10);

// Clear
buf.clear();

2) BufferManager (High-level API)

BufferManager wraps CircularBuffer and provides a friendly API:

• pushHead / pushTail (single item or array)
• popHead / popTail (single or count)
• getHead / getTail (single or count)
• utilities: getAll, replaceAll, forEach/map/filter, getInfo, etc.

import { BufferManager } from "circular-queue-react";

const b = new BufferManager<string>(3);

// pushTail keeps newest at the end (TAIL)
b.pushTail(["A", "B", "C", "D"]);
console.log(b.getAll()); // ["B","C","D"] (keeps last 3)

// pushHead inserts at HEAD, preserves input order
b.pushHead(["X", "Y"]);
console.log(b.getAll()); // ["X","Y","B"] (oldest -> newest)

// Peek
console.log(b.getHead()); // "X"
console.log(b.getTail()); // "B"
console.log(b.getHead(2)); // ["X","Y"] (oldest -> newer)
console.log(b.getTail(2)); // ["B","Y"] (newest -> older)

// Pop
console.log(b.popHead()); // "X"
console.log(b.popTail(2)); // ["B","Y"] (newest -> older)

// Replace all (keeps last capacity if overflow)
b.replaceAll(["1", "2", "3", "4"]);
console.log(b.getAll()); // ["2","3","4"]

3) Factory Function

import { createBuffer } from "circular-queue-react";

const buf = createBuffer<number>(3); // returns BufferManager<number>
buf.pushTail([1, 2, 3, 4]); // keeps [2,3,4]

4) React Hook

useCircularBuffer provides a BufferManager-TAILed stateful hook:

• data auto-updates after mutations
• pushHead / pushTail / popHead / popTail / replaceAll / clear / resize

import { useCircularBuffer } from "circular-queue-react";

export function LogViewer() {
  const { data, pushTail, popHead, clear, size, capacity, available, isFull } =
    useCircularBuffer<string>(100);

  return (
    <div>
      <button onClick={() => pushTail(`Log @ ${new Date().toISOString()}`)}>
        Add Log
      </button>
      <button onClick={() => popHead()}>Pop Oldest</button>
      <button onClick={clear}>Clear</button>

      <div>
        {size}/{capacity} (available: {available}) {isFull && "⚠️ FULL"}
      </div>

      {data.map((log, i) => (
        <div key={i}>{log}</div>
      ))}
    </div>
  );
}

Hook options

const { data } = useCircularBuffer<number>(10, {
  initialItems: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5],
});

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Order Semantics (Important)

This library uses consistent ordering rules:

• getAll() always returns oldest → newest
• getHead(n) returns oldest → newer
• getTail(n) returns newest → older
• popHead(n) removes/returns oldest → newer
• popTail(n) removes/returns newest → older

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Important Type Limitation

⚠️ When T itself is an array type, the array overload for pushHead/pushTail cannot be used.

Why?

TypeScript cannot distinguish between:

• T (when T = number[])
• readonly T[] (which would be readonly number[][])

Both resolve to array types, making overload resolution ambiguous.

Example

// ❌ PROBLEMATIC: T = number[]
const buf = new BufferManager<number[]>(5);

// This will fail! TypeScript cannot tell if you mean:
// 1. Push a single item (which happens to be an array): number[]
// 2. Push multiple items: readonly number[][]
buf.pushTail([[1, 2], [3, 4]]);

// ✅ SOLUTION: Push one item at a time
buf.pushTail([1, 2]);     // Push single array
buf.pushTail([3, 4]);     // Push another single array

Workaround

When T is an array type, always push items one at a time instead of using the array overload:

const items: number[][] = [[1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6]];

// ❌ Don't do this:
// buf.pushTail(items);

// ✅ Do this instead:
for (const item of items) {
  buf.pushTail(item);
}

// Or use a wrapper type:
type Item = { data: number[] };
const typedBuf = new BufferManager<Item>(5);
typedBuf.pushTail([
  { data: [1, 2] },
  { data: [3, 4] }
]); // ✅ Works!

This limitation applies to:

• BufferManager.pushHead()
• BufferManager.pushTail()
• useCircularBuffer hook's pushHead and pushTail

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API Reference

Direction

Direction.HEAD; // head / oldest side
Direction.TAIL; // tail / newest side

CircularBuffer<T>

Constructor

• new CircularBuffer<T>(capacity: number)

Methods

• push(item: T, direction: Direction): void

• pop(direction: Direction): T | undefined

• get(direction: Direction): T | undefined

• get(direction: Direction, count: number): T[] HEAD count: oldest → newer, TAIL count: newest → older

• clear(): void

• resize(newCapacity: number): void (logical capacity)

• getSize(): number

• getCapacity(): number (physical storage)

• getLogicalCapacity(): number

• [Symbol.iterator](): Iterator<T> (oldest → newest)

BufferManager<T>

High-level managed buffer built on top of CircularBuffer.

Add (Push)

• pushHead(item: T): void
• pushHead(items: readonly T[]): void
• pushTail(item: T): void
• pushTail(items: readonly T[]): void

Remove (Pop)

• popHead(): T | undefined
• popHead(count: number): T[] (oldest → newer)
• popTail(): T | undefined
• popTail(count: number): T[] (newest → older)

Peek (Read Without Removing)

• getHead(): T | undefined
• getHead(count: number): T[] (oldest → newer)
• getTail(): T | undefined
• getTail(count: number): T[] (newest → older)
• getAll(): T[] (oldest → newest)

Maintenance / Status

• clear(): void
• resize(newCapacity: number): void
• replaceAll(items: readonly T[]): void
• size(): number
• capacity(): number
• isEmpty(): boolean
• isFull(): boolean
• available(): number

Utilities

• getFirstAndLast(): { first: T | undefined; last: T | undefined }
• getInfo(): { data: T[]; totalCount: number }
• forEach(cb): void
• map(cb): U[]
• filter(cb): T[]
• Iterable (oldest → newest)

useCircularBuffer Hook

function useCircularBuffer<T>(
  capacity: number,
  options?: { initialItems?: readonly T[] }
): {
  data: T[];

  pushHead: (input: T | readonly T[]) => void;
  pushTail: (input: T | readonly T[]) => void;

  popHead: { (): T | undefined; (count: number): T[] };
  popTail: { (): T | undefined; (count: number): T[] };

  getHead: () => T | undefined;
  getTail: () => T | undefined;

  clear: () => void;
  replaceAll: (items: readonly T[]) => void;
  resize: (newCapacity: number) => void;

  size: number;
  capacity: number;
  isEmpty: boolean;
  isFull: boolean;
  available: number;

  getFirstAndLast: () => { first: T | undefined; last: T | undefined };

  // advanced:
  manager: BufferManager<T>;
};

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Use Cases

1) React Real-time Log Viewer

import { useCircularBuffer } from "circular-queue-react";

type LogEntry = {
  ts: number;
  level: "info" | "warn" | "error";
  message: string;
};

export function LogViewer() {
  const { data, pushTail, clear, size, isFull } =
    useCircularBuffer<LogEntry>(1000);

  const add = (level: LogEntry["level"], message: string) =>
    pushTail({ ts: Date.now(), level, message });

  const errors = data.filter((x) => x.level === "error");

  return (
    <div>
      <h2>
        Logs ({size}/1000) {isFull && "⚠️ FULL"}
      </h2>

      <button onClick={() => add("info", "hello")}>Add</button>
      <button onClick={() => add("error", "oops")}>Add Error</button>
      <button onClick={clear}>Clear</button>

      <h3>Errors: {errors.length}</h3>
      {data.map((x, i) => (
        <div key={i}>
          [{x.level}] {x.message}
        </div>
      ))}
    </div>
  );
}

2) Rolling Window Average (Vanilla TS)

import { BufferManager } from "circular-queue-react";

class RollingAverage {
  private buf = new BufferManager<number>(5);

  add(v: number) {
    this.buf.pushTail(v);
  }

  avg() {
    const a = this.buf.getAll();
    return a.length ? a.reduce((s, x) => s + x, 0) / a.length : 0;
  }
}

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Performance

Operation	Complexity
push / pop / get (peek)	O(1)
get(count)	O(k)
getAll / iteration snapshot	O(n)
resize	O(n)
clear	O(1)

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Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for version history and release notes.

License

MIT

Contributing

PRs are welcome!

If you find a bug or want a feature, please open an issue.