React Method

Define methods for React components through props.

Motivation

Encapsulation

Sometimes we want to encapsulate some functionality(method) into a component because it is the best place for having related data or other reasons. For example, we want a notification component with method send, or a form component with method submit.

Invocation

Since we defined a method for a component, it should be invoked by other components. How? It seems that we can use ref to reference that component, but ...

ref is bad

There are enough articles to argue about this. For me, one key point is that normal class method cannot be inherited when component is extended with HOC mode.

Usage

This package exports two HOCs:

• defineMethod(name, definition) is used to define method for a component
  • definition is such a function: (props) => (...args) => any
• withMethod(name) is used to 'extract' and invoke a method

import React, { Component } from 'react'
import { withMethod, defineMethod } from 'react-method'
import { compose, withHandlers } from 'recompose'
 
const LoginForm = compose(
  withHandlers({
    submit: (props) => () => {
      // inner submit implementation
      // ...
    }
  }),
  withHandlers({
    onSubmit: ({submit}) => e => {
      e.preventDefault()
      submit()
    }  
  }),
  // as we defined such a method, consumer components now can extract `submitForm` method from this component through props
  defineMethod('submitForm', ({submit}) => () => {
    submit()
  })
)(({onSubmit}) => (
  <form onSubmit={onSubmit}>
    ...
    <button>inner submit</button>
  </form>
))
 
const LoginView = compose(
  withMethod('submitForm')
)(({submitForm}) => (
  <div>
    <LoginForm submitForm={submitForm.define}/>
    <button onClick={submitForm.invoke}>outer submit</button>
  </div>
))

License

MIT