Show HN: Ultra-lightweight chunker library with emoji support
18 Beardier 8 6/3/2025, 4:50:29 PM github.com ↗
I kept rewriting the same array.slice(i, i + n) logic in every project. Eventually, I decided to stop and just make a utility.
Chonkify is a small (~870B), zero-dependency JS/TS library for chunking any kind of data:
- Works with Array, String, Buffer, Set, Map, Array-like, TypedArray
- Handles AsyncIterable (great for batching streams)
- Unicode-safe (correctly handles grapheme clusters, emoji, etc.)
- ESM-first, TypeScript-ready
I mostly made it for myself, but figured others might find it useful too.
Would love feedback!
This is 140 lines of code, with comments. Yet it gets a whole separate repository, with a cute name, fancy README, little emoji graphics and a bespoke logo. All of this for functionality that other languages have in their stdlib.
It's almost like it's more of an exercise in marketing than an attempt to actually make a useful library.
As for the name and README — I don’t really see it as marketing. I just prefer to make things clear and easy to use for anyone who stumbles across it. Even if it’s a small project, why not present it properly?
If that comes off as overkill, fair enough. I’d rather overdeliver than leave people guessing.
>Correctly handles Unicode emoji and complex symbols
I'm no JS/TS expert, but this sounds like it could be a case of making something behave like an inexperienced dev would expect at the cost of making it behave unexpectedly to an experienced dev.
JS strings are sequences of UTF16 code points, and that's part of their public API (e.g. 'split'), right? That's JS's choice (or mistake, depending on your feelings). So I would expect 'chonk' to treat strings as what they are. And then add a flag or separate method ('chonkGraphemes') instead.
But maybe this kind of "helpfulness" is normal in 3rd party JS APIs?