Refactoring Our Code Into A Library

Objectives

In this lesson, we will learn how to turn our code into a library that can be used across JavaScript applications. By the end of the lesson you will be able to:

Understand which part of our codebase can be used across applications.
Understand how to encapsulate the functions we built.
Learn about the getState method and how it works.

Use js/createStore.js to follow along. Open index.html to try out the code.

Encapsulate our application's state by wrapping our code in a function

Let's look at the code that we wrote in the last section.

let state;

function reducer(state = { count: 0 }, action) {
  switch (action.type) {
    case 'INCREASE_COUNT':
      return { count: state.count + 1 };

    default:
      return state;
  }
};

function dispatch(action){
  state = reducer(state, action);
  render();
};

function render() {
  let container = document.getElementById('container');
  container.textContent = state.count;
};

dispatch({ type: '@@INIT' })
let button = document.getElementById('button');

button.addEventListener('click', () => {
    dispatch({ type: 'INCREASE_COUNT' });
})

See that state variable all the way at the top of our code? Remember, that variable holds a representation of all of our data we need to display. So it's not very good if this variable is global, and we can accidentally overwrite simply by writing state = 'bad news bears' somewhere else in our codebase. Goodbye state.

We can solve this by wrapping our state in a function. (We will discuss a bit later why we have named this function createStore.)

function createStore() {
  let state;
}
// ...

function dispatch(action) {
  state = reducer(state, action);
  render();
};

function render() {
  let container = document.getElementById('container');
  container.textContent = state.count;
};

Now if you reload the browser, you'll see an error pointing to where we are dispatching our initial action; this is because the dispatch function does not have access to that declared state. Notice that render won't have access to our state either. At this point, we might be tempted to move everything inside of our new function. However, the goal here is to include only the code that would be common to all JavaScript applications inside the function. We'll try to figure out exactly what we should move in the next section.

Move Code Common to Every JavaScript Application Inside Our New Function

We ultimately want our new function to become a function that all of our applications following the Redux pattern can use. To decide what our new function should be able to do, let's go back to our Redux fundamentals.

Action -> Reducer -> New State.

The function that goes through this flow for us is the dispatch function. We call dispatch with an action, and it calls our reducer and returns to us a new state. So let's move dispatch inside of our new method.

function createStore() {
  let state;
  // state is now accessible to dispatch

  function dispatch(action) {
    state = reducer(state, action);
    render();
  }
}

Note: You may notice that in the above code we made a closure. As you surely remember a JavaScript function has access to all the variables that were in scope at the time of its definition. This feature is called a closure since a function encloses or draws a protective bubble around the variables in its scope and carries those with it when invoked later.

As you see above, dispatch is now private to our new function. But we'll need to call the function when certain events happen in our application (eg. we might want to call dispatch when a user clicks on a button). So we expose the method by having our function return a JavaScript object containing the dispatch method. In Redux terms, this returned JavaScript object is called the store, so we've named the method createStore because that's what it does.

function createStore() {
  let state;

  function dispatch(action) {
    state = reducer(state, action);
    render();
  };

  return { dispatch };
};

Now, in order to access the dispatch method, we will create a variable store and set it equal to the result of calling createStore. Because createStore returns an object that contains the dispatch method, we can now access the method from store. Let's modify the code where we dispatch the initial action as follows:

let store = createStore();
store.dispatch({ type: '@@INIT' });

So now we have this object called a store which contains all of our application's state. Right now we can dispatch actions that modify that state, but we need some way to retrieve data from the store. To do this, our store should respond to one other method, getState. This method simply returns the state so we can use it elsewhere in our application. We will also need to add getState to the object our createStore function returns.

function createStore() {
  let state;

  function dispatch(action) {
    state = reducer(state, action);
    render();
  }

  function getState() {
    return state;
  }

  return {
    dispatch,
    getState
  };
};

Now we can get our code working by changing render to the following:

function render() {
  let container = document.getElementById('container');
  container.textContent = store.getState().count;
};

...and then updating our button event listener to use store.dispatch:

let button = document.getElementById('button');

button.addEventListener('click', () => {
    store.dispatch({ type: 'INCREASE_COUNT' });
})

All in all, with these changes, the code should look like the following:

function createStore() {
  let state;

  function dispatch(action) {
    state = reducer(state, action);
    render();
  }

  function getState() {
    return state;
  }

  return {
    dispatch,
    getState
  };
};

function reducer(state = { count: 0 }, action) {
  switch (action.type) {
    case 'INCREASE_COUNT':
      return { count: state.count + 1 };

    default:
      return state;
  }
};

function render() {
  let container = document.getElementById('container');
  container.textContent = store.getState().count;
};

let store = createStore();
store.dispatch({ type: '@@INIT' });
let button = document.getElementById('button');

button.addEventListener('click', () => {
    store.dispatch({ type: 'INCREASE_COUNT' });
})

Our code is back to working. And it looks like we have a function called createStore which can work with any JavaScript application...almost.

Abstract away the reducer

We know that Redux works by having an action dispatched, which calls a reducer, and then renders the view. Our createStore's dispatch method does that.

function dispatch(action) {
  state = reducer(state, action);
  render();
};

Notice, however, that we did not move the reducer function into the createStore function. Take a look at it. This code is particular to our application.

function reducer(state = { count: 0 }, action) {
  switch (action.type) {
    case 'INCREASE_COUNT':
      return { count: state.count + 1 };

    default:
      return state;
  }
};

We happen to have an application that increases a count. But we can imagine applications that manage people's songs, their GitHub repositories, or their contacts. So we want our dispatch method to call a reducer every time an action is dispatched. However, we don't want the createStore function to specify what that reducer is, or what it does. We want createStore to be generic enough for any JavaScript application. Instead, we should make the reducer an argument to our createStore function. Then we pass through our reducer function when invoking the createStore method.

function createStore(reducer) {
  let state;

  function dispatch(action) {
    state = reducer(state, action);
    render();
  }

  function getState() {
    return state;
  };

  return {
    dispatch,
    getState
  };
};

function reducer(state = { count: 0 }, action) {
  switch (action.type) {
    case 'INCREASE_COUNT':
      return { count: state.count + 1 };

    default:
      return state;
  }
}


function render() {
  let container = document.getElementById('container');
  container.textContent = store.getState().count;
};

let store = createStore(reducer) // createStore takes the reducer as an argument
store.dispatch({ type: '@@INIT' });
let button = document.getElementById('button');

button.addEventListener('click', () => {
  store.dispatch({ type: 'INCREASE_COUNT' });
});

As you see above, createStore takes the reducer as the argument. This sets the new store's reducer as reducer. When an action is dispatched, it calls the reducer that we passed through when creating the store.

Summary

With this set up, we've got a fully functional store, that encapsulates our state and provides a controlled way to write (dispatch) and retrieve (getState) information.

Every piece of code that would be common to any JavaScript application following this pattern is wrapped inside of the createStore function. Any code that is particular to our application is outside that function.

What's particular to a specific application?

How the DOM is updated in our render function
What events trigger a dispatch method
How our state should change in response to different actions being dispatched.

These are all implemented outside of our createStore function. What is generic to each application following this pattern?

That a call to dispatch should call a reducer, reassign the state, and render a change.