react-redux together with components status - react-redux

Question

in a react UI I have a table component. You can edit one row of the table by clicking a edit button or you can add a new record by clicking a "new-record-button". When clicking the edit button an redux-action is triggered which takes the row and sets a visible property of a modal dialog. When the "new-record-button" is clicked an action is triggered which creates a new empty data item and the same modal dialog is triggered.
In the modal dialog I have several text components with onChange method.
in this onChange-method the data-item is written.
When to user clicks a save-button the edited dataItem is saved to the database.
So my code looks like:
const mapStateToProps = (state) => ({
dataItem: state.datItemToEdit || {},
...
});
...
handleTextChange(event) {
const {
dataItem
} = this.props;
const id = event.target.id;
const text = event.target.value;
switch (id) {
case 'carId': {
dataItem.carId = text;
break;
}
...
}
this.forceUpdate();
}
...
<TextField
...
onChange={event => this.handleTextChange(event)}
/>
I have several question regarding this approach. First I do not understand why in handleTextChange we can write to dataItem. It does work apparently.
dataItem.carId is set in the example code but I thought
const {dataItem} = this.props;
gives us a local read-only variable dataItem just to read from the props...
Next thing I think is a poor design. After reading in a book about react I think we should not write to props but only set a state.
In my example I get the the dataItem from the redux-state. The mapStateToProps maps it to the (read-only) props of the component, right?!. But I want to EDIT it. So I would have to copy it to the state of my component?
But where to do it?
Once in the state of my component I could simply call this.setState for the various text-fields and the component would render and I could abstain from forceUpdate(), right?!
Can someone explain how the redux status plays together with the component status and props for this example?

Answer 1

In redux or react, you shouldn't write to the props directly because you should keep your props as immutable. Redux forces us to use immutable state because state is a source of truth for the application. If the reference to state changes then only your app should render. If you'll mutate your state (objects) then the references don't get changed and your app doesn't know whether some state has been changed or not. React/Redux doesn't give you read-only objects automatically. You can mutate them anytime but as I told you, it can cause problems that Your app won't know when to re-render. If you want to have this read-only property inherently, you should probably use immutable.js
About your second question that you'll have to copy the props to the component's state and where you should do it. You should do it in the constructor of the component and you should use immutibility helper
import React from React;
import update from 'immutibility-helper';
class Modal extends React.Component {
constructor(props){
this.state = {
dataItem: dataItem,
};
}
...other methods
handleTextChange(event) {
const {
dataItem
} = this.props;
const id = event.target.id;
const text = event.target.value;
switch (id) {
case 'carId': {
this.props.updateItem(this.state.dataItem, text); //fire a redux action to update state in redux
this.setState(update(this.state, {
dataItem: {
carId: {$set: text},
}
});
break;
}
...
}
}
}
You wouldn't have to do forceUpdate in such case because the reference to state will change and the component will re-render itself.
Also, you can use forceUpdate in your application but personally I don't find it a great idea because when React/Redux is giving you the flow of state, by using forceUpdate, you're breaking the flow.
The last question is how redux and react state plays together. That is also a matter of choice. If I have a app level state, e.g., in your case you've some app level data, you should put that in your redux state and if you have a component level things, such as opening a modal or opening a third pane. That's the convention I follow but that can really depend on how you want to exploit react and redux state.
Also, in above code, I put the redux state in component state too (because you asked where to put that) but Ideally you should fire a redux action and update in redux state. In this way, you will restrict yourself from state duplication in react and redux.
import React from React;
import {updateItem} from './actions';
class Modal extends React.Component {
...other methods
handleTextChange(event) {
const {
dataItem
} = this.props;
const id = event.target.id;
const text = event.target.value;
switch (id) {
case 'carId': {
this.props.updateItem(this.props.dataItem, text); //fire a redux action to update state in redux
break;
}
...
}
}
}
const mapStateToProps = (state) => ({
dataItem: getDataItem(state), //get Data Item gets Data from redux state
});
export default connect(mapStateToProps, {updateItem: updateItem})(Modal);
in Actions:
updateItem = (dataItem, text) => dispatch => {
dispatch({type: 'UPDATE_ITEM', payLoad: {dataItem, text});
};
in Reducer:
export default (state = {}, action) => {
switch(action){
case 'UPDATE_ITEM': {
return {
...state,
dataItem: {
...action.dataItem,
carId: action.text,
}
};
}
}
}
In this way, your state will be pure and you don't have to worry about immutibility.
EDIT:
As constructor will be called only once, you should probably use componentWillReceiveProps so that whenever you render the component, you get the next updated props of the component. You can check whether the carId of dataItem is same or not and then update the state.
componentWillReceiveProps(nextProps){
if(nextProps.dataItem.carId !== this.props.dataItem.carId){
this.setState({dataItem: nextProps.dataItem});
}
}

Answer 2

You should only use redux when you want different, unrelated components in your app to know and share the specific state.
e.g. - When a user logs in to your app, you might want all components to know that user so you'll connect your different containers to the user reducer and then propagate the user to the components.
Sounds like in this case you have a classic use case for using the inner state.
You can use the parent of all TextFields to maintain all rows, edit them by index, etc.
Once you start using redux, it's really easy to make the mistake of transferring the entire state of the components to the reducers, I've been there and stopped doing it a while ago :)