redux-free-flow

What it does

It let's you write pure, composable and versatile redux store interactions (both sync and async) like this:

import { Do, dispatch, effect, end, rollback } from "redux-free-flow";
import { withdraw, deposit, readBalance } from "./account-actions";
import { callApiToTransfer } from "./api-utils";
 
export function transferMoney(fromAccount, toAccount, amount) {
  return Do(function*() {
    const balance = yield readBalance(fromAccount);
    if (balance >= amount) {
      // sync dispatch
      yield withdraw(fromAccount, amount);
      yield deposit(toAccount, amount);
      // async and effectual
      const response = yield effect(
        callApiToTransfer.bind(null, fromAccount, toAccount, amount));
      if (response === "success") {
        yield end;
      } else {
        yield rollback;
      }
    } else {
      yield dispatch({ type: "ERROR_INSUFFICIENT_FUNDS" });
    }
  });
}
// later
store.dispatch(transferMoney(21, 23, 1000));

Yes, dispatch({ type: "ERROR_INSUFFICIENT_FUNDS" }) is pure - it does not dispatch actions, instead it's an expression evaluates to some data structure to be interpreted later (when dispatched by redux store). This small snippet of code does the following once dispatched:

• Use getState (by readBalance) to get account balance of fromAccount
• Check if the account has enough funds to transfer
  • If so, dispatches two actions, withdraw and deposit atomically
  • makes an api call to tell the server this transfer transaction has happened
  • conclude everything if api response indicates a server-side success
    • otherwise, rollback the entire transaction
• If not enough funds, dispatches an error action { type: "ERROR_INSUFFICIENT_FUNDS" }

Example

Demo Link

Source

How it Works

The inspirations of this enhancer are:

• Free Monad, DSL / Interpreter pattern
• Event Sourcing Systems
• redux-saga co async-await etc.
• transactional semantics

dispatch, effect, rollback etc are all functions that return data structures which encodes the shape and control flow of effectful computations (redux store api calls). In fact, the underlying data structure here is a Free Monad. If you don't know what it is don't worry, for the purpose of using these library, they are just immutable objects with then method. For example:

const callDispatch = dispatch({ type: "SOME_ACTION" });
const twiceDispatch = callDispatch.then(() => {
  return callDispatch;
});

You'd write these store interactions just like how you would write promise chains - and the final interaction when dispatched will do almost exactly what you think it does.

Furthermore, a handy generator oriented helper Do is provided to make code more readable. Haskell has do notation, Scala has for comprehension, and javaScript has co and async-wait syntax for flattening out nested promise chains. Do lets you use generators to rewrite the code above to:

const twiceDispatch = () => Do(function* () {
  yield callDispatch;
  yield callDispatch;
});

• Note: Do(function* { .. }) is no-longer pure as generators are stateful, making the resulting interactions interpretable only once. It is better to wrap Do calls inside a function, and every time you dispatch the same interaction, call the function again for a new iterator.

Comparisons with Other Libraries

• Isn't this like redux-thunk?

Kinda. redux-thunks gives you the freedom to consult getState and do multiple and possibly async dispatch calls. But thunks are effectful and not composable. You cannot easily take the return value of a thunk and use it as inputs of other thunks easily, nor can you rollback thunk actions without big changes to reducer. This library gives you all the raw power of redux-thunk but non of the effectful nastiness...

• redux-saga

Think an DSL / interaction / free monad (I haven't come up a name yet...) as a one-time saga. It doesn't have access to actions from other dispatch calls, but the general idea is similar: declarative and composable async control flows.

• redux-loop

DSL / Interactions / free monads are move expressive than redux-loop Effects / Cmds. They incorporate both read, sync dispatch and async effects in one unified framework. Oh, and rollbacks...

API

Installation and Integration:

yarn add redux-free-flow

import enhancer from "redux-free-flow";
 
const store = createStore(reducer, preloadedState, enhancer);
// or
const store = compose(...otherEnhancers, enhancer)(createStore)(reducer, preloadedState)

** Note: This library assumes all actions are plain objects, it will not work with other middlewares and enhancers that gives you the ability to use non-plain-object actions (such as redux-thunk, redux-promise) . In other words, an action must be something you reducer can understand.

Core apis:

• read
• dispatch
• effect
• end
• rollback

Don't worry too much about the type signature.

read

read(select : State -> A) : Free DSL A

Given a select function, read produces a command to read value from store, "returned" value is select(store.getState()), the value can be accessed like:

read(select)
  .then(currentValue => { .. })

dispatch

dispatch(action: PlainObject) : Free DSL Unit

dispatch takes an plain object (action), and returns a command that dispatches the action when executed.

For example:

store.dispatch(
  read(state => state.counter)
    .then(counter => {
      if (counter > 0) {
        return dispatch({ type: DECREMENT });
      }
      return end;
    })
)

This will dispatch an DECREMENT action only if store's counter value is positive. redux takes dispatch out of action creators from flux, now I am putting it back in...

effect

effect(promiseFactory: () -> Promise A) : Free DSL A

effect takes a function that returns a promise and stores it. When interpreted, the function gets called, and when the promise it returns resolves, the value becomes available to the next then function in the DSL chain.

end

end :: Free DSL Unit

The termination of a transaction, end is automatically assumed for any chain of commands, it the last one is not end.

rollback

rollback :: Free DSL Unit

The most magical of them all. When encountered by the internal interpreter, all dispatched action from the given transaction so far will be taken out history as if they never happened! Other concurrent actions (and transactions) remain intact.

Performance

Dispatching a free monad switches redux store to a "event sourcing" mode. What it means is all actions dispatched (including vanilla ones) gets added to a queue (this is why rollback is possible). If you have a long running or perpetual thing going on like this:

const forever = () => Do(function* () {
  yield effect(timeout(1000));
  yield forever();
})

You'd either running into a infinite loop (if everything is sync) or a async loop (if effect is used like above) with memory leak from the action queue.

Is it production ready?

No.

It's a complex piece of machinery, there for sure are bugs. Also lots of edge case handling code is missing.