react-create-hoc

Utility for creating React Higher-Order Components (HOC) using best practices for managing prop types.

Motivation

The HOC pattern is a really important tool for code reuse when building UIs in React. Prop types are helpful for catching bugs before they reach production.

Writing HOCs that properly handle the prop types of the components that they wrap, though, is difficult and requires a lot of boilerplate code. Ideally, an engineer should not shy away from moving logic to an HOC because it is too verbose to write one.

To solve this problem, react-create-hoc provides a function that implements much of this boilerplate. It allows HOCs to be created with only a straightforward function that simply wraps a component in a new component.

Usage

import React from 'react';
import PropTypes from 'prop-types';
import createHOC from 'react-create-hoc';
 
function WelcomeMessage({ name }) {
  return <div>{greeting}, {name}!</div>;
}
 
WelcomeMessage.propTypes = {
  greeting: PropTypes.string.isRequired,
  name: PropTypes.string.isRequired,
};
 
const withModifiedName = createHOC(
  'withModifiedName',
  (ComponentToWrap, nameModifier) => {
    function WithModifiedName({ nameProvider, ...rest }) {
      return (
        <ComponentToWrap
          name={nameModifier(nameProvider())}
          {...rest}
        />
      );
    }
 
    WithModifiedName.propTypes = {
      nameProvider: PropTypes.func.isRequired,
    };
 
    return WithModifiedName;
  },
  {
    factory: true,
    passedProps: ['name'],
  },
);
 
// WrappedWelcomeMessage has the following prop types:
// {
//   greeting: PropTypes.string.isRequired,
//   nameProvider: PropTypes.func.isRequired,
// }
const WrappedWelcomeMessage = withModifiedName(
  // nameModifier param
  name => name.toUpperCase(),
)(WelcomeMessage);
 
// Renders a div containing, "Rise and shine, MR. FREEMAN!"
ReactDOM.render(
  <WrappedWelcomeMessage
    greeting="Rise and shine"
    nameProvider={() => 'Mr. Freeman'}
  />,
  document.getElementById('root'),
);

API

createHOC(
  hocName: string,
  componentAndParamsToComponent: (ComponentToWrap, ...params) => WrappedComponent,
  options: {
    factory: boolean,
    passedProps: string[] = [],
    allowExtraProps: boolean = false,
  },
);

Param	Type	Required?	Default	Description
hocName	string	Yes		Name of the resulting HOC
componentAndParamsToComponent	(ComponentToWrap, ...params) => WrappedComponent	Yes		Function that wraps components passed to the HOC
options.factory	boolean	Yes		Return a "factory"-style HOC
options.passedProps	string[]		[]	List of props that are passed by the HOC to the wrapped component
options.allowExtraProps	boolean		false	Disable strict checking of extra props

hocName

Specifies the name of the resulting HOC. This name is added to the name of the wrapped component. For example, passing a component named WelcomeMessage to an HOC having the name withModifiedName results in a component with the name:

withModifiedName(WelcomeMessage)

componentAndParamsToComponent

Function that takes a component to wrap and the params passed to the HOC and returns a new component.

Examples

Simple wrapper that takes no props or parameters

const withFlexWrapper = createHOC(
  'withFlexWrapper',
  ComponentToWrap => (
    function WithFlexWrapper(props) {
      return (
        <div style={{ display: 'flex' }}>
          <ComponentToWrap {...props} />
        </div>
      );
    }
  ),
  { factory: false },
);
 
withFlexWrapper(SomeComponent);

Wrapper that takes parameters

const withStyles = createHOC(
  'withStyles',
  (ComponentToWrap, styles) => (
    function WithStylesWrapper(props) {
      return (
        <ComponentToWrap styles={styles} {...props} />
      );
    }
  ),
  {
    factory: true,
    passedProps: ['styles'],
  },
);
 
withStyles({
  header: {
    position: 'fixed',
    top: 0,
  },
})(SomeComponent);

Wrapper that adds props

const withFadeInOut = createHOC(
  'withFadeInOut',
  (ComponentToWrap) => {
    function WithFadeInOutWrapper({ visible, duration, ...rest}) {
      return (
        <div
          style={{
            opacity: visible ? 1 : 0,
            transition: 'opacity ease-in-out',
            transitionDuration: `${duration}s`,
          }}
        >
          <ComponentToWrap {...rest} />
        </div>
      );
    }
 
    WithFadeInOutWrapper.propTypes = {
      visible: PropTypes.bool,
      duration: PropTypes.number.isRequired,
    };
 
    WithFadeInOutWrapper.defaultProps = {
      visible: false,
    };
 
    return WithFadeInOutWrapper;
  },
  { factory: false },
);
 
const FadingComponent = withFadeInOut(SomeComponent);
 
// Somewhere later on...
 
<FadingComponent visible={true} duration={0.5} />

options.factory

Specifies the HOC "style" to use. This option is required.

When factory is true, the HOC takes params and returns a component-wrapping function. This is useful for cases where the HOC is reused with the same params or included in a call to Redux's compose function (or something similar). For example:

withStyles({ /* style definitions */ })(ComponentToWrap);
 
compose(
  withStyles({ /* style definitions */ }),
  connect(mapStateToProps, mapDispatchToProps),
)(ComponentToWrap);
 
const withSpecificStyles = withStyles({ /* style definitions */ });
const ComponentAWithSpecificStyles = withSpecificStyles(ComponentA);
const ComponentBWithSpecificStyles = withSpecificStyles(ComponentB);

When factory is false, the HOC takes both a component and additional params and returns a wrapped component. This is useful for cases where the HOC takes no params (other than the component to wrap) or when it's preferable to pass the params in the same call as the component. For example:

compose(
  withFlexWrapper,
  connect(mapStateToProps, mapDispatchToProps),
)(ComponentToWrap);
 
withStyles(ComponentToWrap, { /* style definitions */ });

options.passedProps = []

Specifies which props are passed to the component-to-wrap. These props are removed from the wrapped component's prop types. By default, passedProps is [].

options.allowExtraProps = false

Specifies whether the wrapped component should allow extra props to be passed without causing prop type warnings. By default, allowExtraProps is false.

Development

npm install
npm run lint
npm test
npm run build