Question

What would be the most efficient way to convert a PostgreSQL point in the format of "(5.035,1)" to {x: 5.035, y: 1}?

The function I wrote in PHP looks like

function pointToArray($point) {
    if ( strlen($point) == 0 ) return null;

    $xy = explode(",", substr($point, 1, strlen($point)-2));

    return array(
        "x" => $xy[0], 
        "y" => $xy[1]
    );
}

Answer 1

You can use the same approach in Javascript as you did in your PHP:

function pointToObject(point) {
  if(!point.length) return null;
  var split = point.slice(1, -1).split(",");
  return {
    x: +split[0],
    y: +split[1]
  };
}

A naive benchmark I just did was able to execute this function 2 million times in 1.53 seconds.

And, just for good measure, here’s a regex solution shamelessly stolen from NullUserException that is marginally faster on most browsers

function conv(s) { 
   var rx = /\(([^,]+),\s*([^)]+)\)/g; 
   var m = rx.exec(s); 
   return (!m ? null : { x: +m[1], y: +m[2]}); 
}