Optimizing Vue Component Rendering with shouldComponentUpdate

Vue's reactivity system is powerful, but sometimes components re-render unnecessarily, impacting performance. This challenge focuses on implementing a shouldComponentUpdate lifecycle hook to selectively prevent re-renders when data hasn't meaningfully changed, a crucial optimization technique for complex Vue applications. You'll be building a component that utilizes this hook to avoid redundant updates.

Problem Description

You are tasked with creating a ComplexDataDisplay component that displays data fetched from an external source. This data is an object with several nested properties. The component should only re-render if the relevant parts of the data have changed. Specifically, re-render only if data.name, data.count or data.items have changed. Other properties within data should be ignored for re-render decisions. The component should accept a data prop and display the name, count, and a list of items.

Key Requirements:

• Implement the shouldComponentUpdate lifecycle hook.
• Compare the previous and current data props within shouldComponentUpdate.
• Only return true from shouldComponentUpdate if data.name, data.count, or data.items have changed.
• The component must display the name, count, and items properties from the data prop.
• The component should handle cases where data.items is an empty array.

Expected Behavior:

• On initial render, the component should display the data correctly.
• If the data prop changes in a way that affects data.name, data.count, or data.items, the component should re-render.
• If the data prop changes but only affects properties other than data.name, data.count, or data.items, the component should not re-render.

Edge Cases to Consider:

• data prop being null or undefined. (Handle gracefully, perhaps by displaying a placeholder.)
• data.items being an empty array.
• Deeply nested objects within data.items. (The comparison should be based on the values, not just object references.)
• Data types of data.name and data.count (string and number respectively).

Examples

Example 1:

Input: data = { name: "Initial Name", count: 10, items: [1, 2, 3], extraProperty: "someValue" }
Output: Displays "Initial Name", 10, and the list [1, 2, 3]

Explanation: Initial render.

Example 2:

Input: data = { name: "Updated Name", count: 10, items: [1, 2, 3], extraProperty: "anotherValue" }
Output: Displays "Updated Name", 10, and the list [1, 2, 3]
Explanation: `data.name` changed, so the component re-renders.

Example 3:

Input: data = { name: "Initial Name", count: 10, items: [1, 2, 3], extraProperty: "anotherValue" }
Output: No re-render. Displays "Initial Name", 10, and the list [1, 2, 3]
Explanation: Only `extraProperty` changed, so the component does not re-render.

Constraints

• The component must be written in TypeScript.
• The component must be a functional component using the Composition API.
• The comparison within shouldComponentUpdate must be a deep comparison of the relevant properties. Using JSON.stringify for comparison is acceptable for this challenge.
• Performance: The shouldComponentUpdate function should execute quickly. Avoid overly complex or inefficient comparison logic.

Notes

• Consider using a utility function for deep comparison to keep the shouldComponentUpdate function clean.
• Think carefully about what constitutes a "meaningful" change. The problem statement defines it as changes to data.name, data.count, or data.items.
• This challenge focuses on the logic of shouldComponentUpdate. Styling and complex data transformations are not required.
• Remember to handle the case where the data prop is initially null or undefined.