normer-actions

A plugin that generates entity and relationship actions based on the normalized output of the normer plugin.

Setup

npm install normer normer-actions --save

Usage

import { relationshipTypes } from 'normer'
import createNormerActionsCreator from 'normer-actions'

const entityActionsCreatorGenerator = (entityName: string, id: string | number)=>{
  get: (entity)=>({
    type: `${entityName}/get`,
    payload: entity,
  }),
  ...
}

const relationshipActionsCreatorGenerator = (entityName: string, relationshipName: string, id: string | number)=>{
  create: (value)=>({
    type: `${entityName}/${relationshipName}/create`,
    payload: {id, value},
  }),
  ...
}

const normerSchema = {
  users: {
    modifier: ({friends, ...props})=>props,
    relationships: [{
      entityName: 'users',
      name: 'friends',
      type: relationshipTypes.MANY,
    }]
  }
}

const normerActionsCreator = createNormerActionsCreator(
  entityActionsCreatorGenerator,
  relationshipActionsCreatorGenerator,
  normerSchema
);

const input = {
  id: 1,
  name: 'Loyd',
  friends: [{
    id: 2,
    name: 'Harry'
  }]
}

const normerActions = normerActionsCreator(input, 'users')

console.log(normerActions)
/*
[
  {
    type: 'users/get',
    payload: {
      id: 1,
      name: 'Loyd',
    }
  },
  {
    type: 'users/get',
    payload: {
      id: 2,
      name: 'Harry',
    }
  },
  {
    type: 'users/friends/create',
    payload: {
      id: 1,
      value: [2],
    }
  },
]
*/

Why is this necessary

There are a lot of normalizers on npm, and they all normalize very well, most particularly, normalizr. The trick is how to use that normalized data. For many redux users, as far as I know, this requires a custom approach. I wanted to abstract away some of that customization, but at the same time, leave the plugin open to almost any configuration.

How it works

The basic idea is that normer-actions process a deeply nested object using the normer library's normalizing capabilities, and then parse the results into easy to use actions. The normer-actions library creates these actions through separate entity and relationship action creators. Action creators generator => action creators => actions. An action creator generator will return an object of action creator functions.

Entity action creator object

{
  get: (ent)=>({...}),
  ...
}

Relationship action creator object

{
  create: ({id, value})=>({...}),
  ...
}

The get action creator and create action creator are the default creators for the respective entity and relationship action creators.

Advanced Features: Options

The third argument of the normerActionsCreator (ie. the resulting function when calling the createNormerActionsCreator) is an options object with the following properties:

entityActionsCreator(input, entityName, options)

startingSchema

const options = {
  startingSchema: {
    idFunc: ()=>'pages'
  }
}

The starting schema is a normer concept, and it allows you to pass in the exact starting schema to be used when parsing a deeply nested object. Once the object goes through the first parse, it reverts back to using the regular schema for the remainder parsings.

entity

const options = {
  entity: (entityName, id)=>{
    actionName: 'create'
  }
}

A function that takes the current entityName and id and returns an object. Currently, there is only one option, actionName, which allows you to change which actionCreator is called.

relationship

const options = {
  relationship: (entityName, relationshipName, id)=>{
    actionName: 'create'
  }
}

A function that takes the current entityName, relationshipName and id and returns an object. Currently, there is only one option, actionName, which allows you to change which actionCreator is called.