How would you handle lazy loading in a file explorer?
Load children on expand, not on initial render. When a folder is expanded, fetch its children from an API. Show a loading indicator while fetching. This avoids loading the entire tree upfront for large directories.
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More FAQs in File Explorer Interview Tips and Common Questions
Start with the data structure (tree object). Write the recursive render function first. Test with a simple 2-level tree, then deeper. Add icons and CSS last. Handle empty folders. Get the recursion right before anything else.
Virtualization (only render visible nodes), lazy loading (load children on expand), and search/filter to narrow down. Do not render 10,000 DOM nodes at once. Use a virtual list library or implement custom virtualization.
Recursively search the tree: traverse and collect nodes whose name includes the query. Show results as a flat list with the full path. Highlight matching text. Clear results when the search is cleared.
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