React Simple Compose

Description

Utility function designed to create containers for your React components, following the smart/dumb component philosophy.

Installation

npm install react-simple-compose

Usage

The package default export is a compose function. It expects a composer function as its first argument and returns a container function.

import compose from 'react-simple-compose';
 
const composer = (cb, props) => {
  /* do something with cb*/
}
 
const container = compose(composer);

The composer function is called when the contained component is mounted and receives two arguments: a callback and the props passed to the container.

The callback is used to provide data to the component, even asynchronously.

const composer = cb => {
  cb({ name: 'Lucas' });
 
  setInterval(() => {
    cb({ now: new Date() })
  }, 1000);
 
  /* Component gets a 'name' prop with value 'Lucas'
  * and a 'now' prop that updates every second
  */
}

There are two possible special states: loading and error. By default, the component doesn't get rendered in these states.

The callback can also be used to change the container state.

const composer = cb => {
  // state defaults to 'loading'
  http.get('/my/friends', (err, res) => {
    // passing an error as first argument changes state to 'error'
    if (err) cb(err)
    // passing data removes any kind of special states
    else cb({ friends: res })
  });
}

You can provide custom components to be rendered in special states. All rendered components get the same props: all the data and the error object.

const ErrorComponent = ({ error }) => (
  <div style={{ color: 'red' }}>
    {error.reason}
  </div>
)
 
const container = compose(composer, {
  loading: LoadingComponent,
  error: ErrorComponent
})

The generated container function expects a component and returns its contained version, that is, the component wrapped in the container that provides the props it needs.

This is sometimes called a smart component and that's what you should render to your view.

const container = compose(composer)
const Smart = container(dumb)
 
render((
  <div id='named-clock'>
    <Smart />
  </div>
))

License

MIT