react-api-data

Automate calling external APIs and handling response data. Supports any API with JSON responses. Uses Fetch for performing API requests, normalizr for handling response data and redux for storing data.

Installation

npm install react-api-data

or

yarn add react-api-data

Make sure fetch is available globally, polyfill it if needed to support older environments.

Install dependencies

React-api-data requires the installation of the peer-dependencies react-redux, redux-thunk and normalizr. These can be installed with the following command:

npm install redux react-redux redux-thunk normalizr

or

yarn add redux react-redux redux-thunk normalizr

API

API specification

Quick usage

Config

import { schema } from 'normalizr';
import { createStore, applyMiddleware, combineReducers } from 'redux';
import { configure, reducer } from 'react-api-data';
import thunk from 'redux-thunk';

// optionally define normalizr response schemas

const authorSchema = new schema.Entity('Author');
const articleSchema = new schema.Entity('Article', {
    author: authorSchema
});

// define api endpoints

const endpointConfig = {
    getArticle: {
        url: 'http://www.mocky.io/v2/5a0c203e320000772de9664c?:articleId/:userId',
        method: 'GET',
        responseSchema: articleSchema
    },
    saveArticle: {
        url: 'http://www.mocky.io/v2/5a0c203e320000772de9664c?:articleId',
        method: 'POST',
        afterSuccess: ({ dispatch, request, getState }) => {
            // After successful post, invalidate the cache of the getArticle call, so it gets re-triggered.
            dispatch(invalidateRequest('getArticle', {articleId: request.params.articleId, userId: getState().userId})); 
        }
    }
};

// Configure store and dispatch config before you render components

const store = createStore(combineReducers({apiData: reducer}), applyMiddleware(thunk));
store.dispatch(configure({}, endpointConfig));

Bind API data to your component

import React from 'react';
import { useApiData } from 'react-api-data';

const Article = (props) => {
    const article = useApiData('getArticle', { id: props.articleId });
    return (
        <>
            {article.request.networkStatus === 'success' &&
                <div>
                    <h1>{article.data.title}</h1>
                    <p>{article.data.body}</p>
                </div>
            }
        </>
    );
}

Optionally use React Suspense

React-api-data supports React Suspense. Suspense can be enabled globally, per endpoint or per Hook/HOC. It is also possible to override the suspense setting for an endpoint or Hook/HOC.

import React from 'react';
import { useApiData } from 'react-api-data';

const Article = (props) => {
    const article = useApiData('getArticle', { id: props.articleId }, { enableSuspense: true });
    return (
        <>
            {article.request.networkStatus === 'success' &&
                <div>
                    <h1>{article.data.title}</h1>
                    <p>{article.data.body}</p>
                </div>
            }
        </>
    );
};

const ArticleList = (props) => {
    return (
        <>
            <Suspense fallback={<ArticleListLoading/>}>
                {props.articles.map(article => <Article articleId={article.id}/>}
            </Suspense>
        </>
    );
}

Post data from your component

import React, { useState } from 'react';
import { useApiData } from 'react-api-data';

const PostComment = props => {
    const [comment, setComment] = useState('');
    const postComment = useApiData('postComment', undefined, {
        // If a certain call requires a different config from what you've defined in the api endpoint config, you can pass config overrides as the third argument.
        autoTrigger: false,
    });
    const { networkStatus } = postComment.request;
    const onSubmit = () => {
        postComment.perform({ id: props.articleId }, { comment });
    };
    return (
        <>
            {networkStatus === 'ready' && (
                <div>
                    <input
                        onChange={event => setComment(event.target.value)}
                        placeholder="Add a comment..."
                    />
                    <button onClick={onSubmit}>Submit</button>
                </div>
            )}
            {networkStatus === 'loading' && <div>Submitting...</div>}
            {networkStatus === 'failed' && (
                <div>
                    Something went wrong.
                    <button onClick={onSubmit}>Try again</button>
                </div>
            )}
            {networkStatus === 'success' && <div>Submitted!</div>}
        </>
    );
};

The gist

Calling external API endpoints and storing response data in your redux state can create bloat in your code when you have multiple endpoints, especially in CRUD applications. This package is the result of eliminating repetitive code around API calls and centralizing the concerns of fetching and storing API data into one single package. It provides an easy to use interface that aims to minimize the amount of code needed to use data from external APIs, while maintaining maximum flexibility to support any non-standard API. The idea is that you can just bind data from a given API endpoint to your component, react-api-data takes care of fetching the data if needed, and binding the data to your component.

Examples

Caching API responses

Responses from successful API calls will be kept in memory so the same call won't be re-triggered a second time. This is especially useful when using withApiData for the same endpoint on multiple components. You can set a cacheDuration to specify how long the response is considered valid, or to disable the caching entirely.

export default {
    getArticle: {
        url: 'http://www.mocky.io/v2/5a0c203e320000772de9664c?:articleId/:userId',
        method: 'GET',
        cacheDuration: 60000, // 1 minute
    },
    getComments: {
        url: 'http://www.mocky.io/v2/5a0c203e320000772de9664c?:articleId',
        method: 'GET',
        cacheDuration: 0, // no caching, use with caution. Preferably set to a low value to prevent multiple simultaneous calls.
    },
    getPosts: {
        url: 'http://www.mocky.io/v2/5a0c203e320000772de9664c?:articleId',
        method: 'GET'
        // Infinite caching
    },
}

Manually clearing cache from your component

import { useApiData } from 'react-api-data';

const Articles = props => {
    const getArticles = useApiData('getArticles');
    return (
        <>
            {/* ... */}
            <button onClick={getArticles.invalidateCache}>Refresh</button>
        </>
    );
}

Manually clearing cache using useActions

Using the useActions api to invalidate the cache of a specific endpoint.

import { useActions} from 'react-api-data';

const Articles = props => {
    const actions = useActions();
    return (
        <>
            {/* ... */}
            <button onClick={() => actions.invalidateCache('getArticle', {id: '1234'})}>Refresh</button>
        </>
    );
}

Removing api data from the store

import { useActions} from 'react-api-data';

const LogoutComponent = props => {
    const actions = useActions();
    return (
        <>
            {/* ... */}
            <button onClick={() => actions.purgeAll()}>Logout</button>
        </>
    );
}

Including Cookies in your Request

export const globalConfig = {
    setRequestProperties: (defaultProperties) => ({
        ...defaultProperties,
        credentials: 'include',
    })
};

Using default parameters

There might be situations where default parameters are needed, for example when using a language in a URL. These default parameters can be set with the defaultParams object in your endpointConfig:

const endpointConfig = {
    getData: {
        url: `${BASE_URL}/:language/getData.json`,
        method: 'GET',
        defaultParams: {
            language: 'en',
        },
    },
};

You can set default values for multiple parameters or only part of the parameters. Their value should be either a string or a number.

Please note that these defaultParams will be overwritten if they are explicitly set in the request paramaters.

Uploading a file

See file Upload examples

Make multiple requests to the same endpoint at once

const connectApiData = withApiData({
    items: 'getItemsInList'
}, (ownProps, state) => ({
    items: [{listId: 1}, {listId: 2}, {listId: 3}]
}));

const ItemsList = (props) => {
    if (props.items.every(item => item.request.networkStatus === 'success')) {
        return (
            <ul>
                {props.items.map(item => (<li>{item.data.title}</li>))}
            </ul>
        );
    }
    return <p>Loading...</p>;
}

export default connectApiData(ItemsList);

Configure with Redux-persist

    // Use the callback of redux-persist to dispatch the afterRehydrate function.
    // This will make sure all loading states are properly reset.
    const persistor = persistStore(store, {}, () => store.dispatch(afterRehydrate()));
    store.dispatch(configure({}, endpointConfig));
    return {
        store,
        persistor,
    };