react-tools

1. Hooks
   • usePrevious
   • useMergedRefs
2. HOCs
   • withContext

usePrevious

Returns value given on previous render or undefined if it's first render.

import { usePrevious } from '@rqm/react-tools'

const Component = ({ count }) => {
	const prevCount = usePrevious(count) || 0 // on first render will be 0
	return <>
		<p>{`previous count: ${prevCount}`}</p>
		<p>{`current count: ${count}`}</p>
	</>
}

withContext

Similar to connect from Redux, withContext used for performant global state management but in combination with React Hooks (useReducer/useState) and React Context:

import { withContext } from '@rqm/react-tools'

const WrappedComponent = withContext(
	Context,
	getPropsFromContextValue,
	Component
)

• Context: React context.
• getPropsFromContextValue: Function that accepts context value as first argument and props passed to WrappedComponent as second. Should return object with props that goes to Component: (contextValue, externalProps) => innerProps. You cannot use React Hooks inside of it but everything else is allowed, for example memoization if you're calculating something expensive.
• Component: React Function Component, Class Component or something that returns JSX.

Motivation

The role of this HOC is to prevent unneccesery renders when object in Context value changes, but not a property of that object which Component needs.

Usage example

Somewhere in root of React components tree:

import React from 'react'

const UserDataContext = React.createContext({
	name: null,
	age: null
})

const userDataReducer = (state, { type, payload }) => {
	switch (type) {
		case 'setName':
			return { ...state, name: payload }
		case 'setAge':
			return { ...state, age: payload }
		default:
			throw new Error(`Bad action type "${type}" with payload=${payload} in userDataReducer.`)
	}
}

const UserDataProvider = ({ children }) => {
	const value = React.useReducer(userDataReducer, { name: null, age: false })
	return <UserDataContext.Provider value={value}>
		{children}
	</UserDataContext.Provider>
}

Wrapped component which accepts boolean prop displayAd from parent component and name from UserDataContext:

import React, { memo } from 'react'

const DisplayUserNameAndMaybeAd = withContext(
	UserDataContext,
	({ name }, props) => ({ ...props, name }),
	({ name, displayAd }) => 
		<div>
			<p>{`Hello, ${name}!`}</p>
			{
				displayAd 
				? <p>Subscribe to get full power!</p>
				: null
			}
		</div>
)

Now some other component dispatches action to change user age:

dispatch({ type: 'setAge', payload: 20 })

And DisplayUserNameAndMaybeAd component will not be rerendered, only withContext HOC.

Nesting

You can nest withContext in another withContext as much times as you want, creating sequential logic pieces for data processing:

const Diagram = withContext(IdContext,
	({ id }, props) => ({ ...props, id }),
	withContext(GetDataContext,
		({ expensiveDataCalculation }, { id, ...props }) => 
			({ data: expensiveDataCalculation(id, props.hash), ...props }),
		({ data, ...otherProps }) => {
			return <div>
				{...}
			</div>
		}
	)
)

Usage with memoization

Example from Nesting have a few flaws, that leads to unneccesery rerenders and/or useless data prop recalculation:

1. withContext not wrapped by memo, and if parent of Diagram will be rerendered but props passed to Diagram not changed then render of nested withContext with expensive calculation of data will eat performance for nothing.
2. If one of otherProps not participating in data computation will be changed and passed to Diagram then there is no need in expensiveDataCalculation to execute.

Memoization comes to rescue:

1. Wrapping first withContext with React.memo will do the trick and nothing will be executed without a reason in case when parent was rerendered.
2. The goal here is to rerender component (because props it consumes still changed) but not to run expensiveDataCalculation. It can be achieved only with external memoization wrapper for expensive computations, but still easy enough:

import { memoize } from '@rqm/tools'

const GetDataProvider = ({ children }) => {
	const value = {
		expensiveButForAReason = memoize(expensiveDataCalculation)
	}
	return <GetDataContext.Provider value={value}>
		{children}
	</GetDataContext.Provider>
}

Thats how code looks with these optimizations:

const Diagram = React.memo(withContext(IdContext,
	({ id }, props) => ({ ...props, id }),
	withContext(GetDataContext,
		({ expensiveButForAReason }, { id, ...props }) => 
			({ data: expensiveButForAReason(id, props.hash), ...props }),
		({ data, ...otherProps }) => {
			return <div>
				{...}
			</div>
		}
	)
))

Usage with Typescript

import React, { Component, createContext } from 'react'
import withContext from './withContext'

const TestContext = createContext({ testing: true })

type PropsType = { yo: string; testing: boolean }

class ClassComponent extends Component<PropsType> {
	render() {
		return <div>{this.props.testing ? this.props.yo : 'bye'}</div>
	}
}

const ClassTest: React.FC<{ yo: string }> = withContext(
	TestContext,
	({ testing }, props) => ({ ...props, testing }),
	ClassComponent
)

const FuncComponent: React.FC<PropsType> = 
	({ yo, testing }) => <div>{testing ? yo : 'bye'}</div>

// You can type external props (that accepts FuncTest) in two ways:
const FuncTest1 = withContext(TestContext,
	({ testing }, props: { yo: string }) => ({ ...props, testing }),
	FuncComponent
)

const FuncTest2: React.FC<{ yo: string }> = withContext(TestContext,
	({ testing }, props) => ({ ...props, testing }),
	FuncComponent
)

// case without component declaration
const FuncTest3: React.FC<{ yo: string }> = withContext(TestContext,
	({ testing }, props) => ({ ...props, testing }),
	({ testing, yo }) => <div>{testing ? yo : 'bye'}</div>
)

useMergedRefs

Returns a function that you can pass to ref to assign two refs for one element.

import { useMergedRefs } from '@rqm/react-tools'
import React, { forwardRef, useRef } from 'react'

const Example = forwardRef<HTMLDivElement, {}>((props, ref) => {
	const secondRef = useRef<HTMLDivElement>(null)
	const mergedRefs = useMergedRefs(ref, secondRef)
	return <div ref={mergedRefs}>
		...
	</div>
})