The Update Pattern

The update pattern is an old practice, but can still be found in many visualizations. Learn how it applies to D3.

There is a pattern called the update pattern. It is a pattern that is deprecated and its usage is not encouraged. Despite that, it is still something we should learn about.

What is the update pattern?

It is an alternative solution for working with the enter, update, and exit selections. Before the join() method, we had to work with each selection independently.

The join() method handles the update, enter, and exit selections all at once. With the update pattern, we need to handle them separately. The selections need to be updated in this order: update, enter, and exit. Let’s explore how the pattern works.

The update selection

We will continue working in the same codebase. Since we are going to be using the update pattern, we can comment on the join() method completely.

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