Dead simple data loader helper for React

Use it not for big projects! If you project needs lots of API communication you'll be probably better off using tools such as GraphQL (I personally recommend Apollo for that task) or even Redux with redux-thunk. Sometimes, though, these are too much.

When loading external data in a React component - be it on user interaction or during mounting phase - we end up rewriting the same logic all over again: loading status, error responses, etc. This could be much simpler and a lot more standardized. Nowadays we use component composition and Higher-Order Components and they are cool. Let's use them.

I've lately being coding most of my projects using the Apollo stack. As with any API client, the Apollo/React integration package provides easy data request status and meta information, right in the component as a simple prop. I wanted that when coding simpler projects too, but without API setup hassle :)

yarn add react-data-loader

Or, good ol' npm install --save react-data-loader

This lib provides a single Higher-Order Component called withDataLoader with the following signature:

withDataLoader(
  propName: string,
  loader: (props: Object) => Function
): HigherOrderComponent

This HoC will inject an object on the property defined by propName. The object will have these keys:

The loader argument of withDataLoader is where the fun happens. It follows a similar specification as that of the withHandlers from Recompose lib: it must be a Higher-Order Function which will receive props and must return a function responsible for fetching data.

import { withDataLoader } from 'react-data-loader'

const MyDataLoaderComponent = ({ someProp }) => (
  <div>
    { JSON.stringify(someProp.data) }
    <button onClick={ someProp.load } disabled={ someProp.loading }>Load!</button>
  </div>
)

// Using Fetch API.
const loader = props => e => fetch('/api/data.json').then(res => res.json())

export default withDataLoader('someProp', loader)(MyDataLoaderComponent)

Copyright (c) 2017 Lucas Constantino Silva

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