React Combinators

Seamless combination of React and reactive programming with (RxJs / Kefir / Bacon.js).

THIS LIBRARY IS NOT MAINTAINED ANYMORE

If you are interested in doing applications with React and observables, please see:

calmm-js powerful toolset for state management and rendering with React and observables (Kefir & Bacon atm)
react.reactive calmm-js rendering part extracted and made streaming library agnostic

Motivation

Modeling your application state with observables gives you powerful tools for (async) state handling. However, combining those observables with React UIs has been a difficult: every observable must be subscribed and disposed separately with the component's lifecycle hooks. Such boilerplate!

The goal of this project is to enable seamless combination of React and observable by introducing React Observable Combinators. Say hello to truly reactive and declarative React app development!

Example

Reddit post search implemented with combinators and kefir (counter example would have been too easy):

import React from "react"
import Kefir from "kefir"
import {Combinator} from "react-combinators/kefir"
import {render} from "react-dom"

// lets define our reactive Reddit state model, see Kefir
// docs for more info about pools and other used methods
function Reddit(initial) {
  const pool = Kefir.pool()
  const setReddit = reddit => pool.plug(Kefir.constant(reddit))
  const reddit =
    pool.merge(Kefir.constant(initial)).toProperty()
  const posts =
    reddit
      .flatMapLatest(reddit => Kefir.fromPromise(
        fetch(`http://www.reddit.com/r/${reddit}.json`).then(req => req.json())
      ))
      .map(json => json.data.children.map(({data}) => data))
      .merge(Kefir.constant([])) // initial value
      .toProperty()
  const loading =
    reddit.map(() => true).merge(posts.map(() => false)).toProperty()

  // yes. the model is just a plain object with a set of actions
  // and reactive properties
  return { reddit, posts, loading, setReddit }
}

// no containers are needed! observables and combinators handle that the
// UI syncs with the state
function App({model}) {
  const { reddit, posts, loading, setReddit } = model

  // we can derive properties as well
  const loadingIndicator =
    loading.map(loading => loading ? <img src="https://github.com/milankinen/react-combinators/raw/master/spinner.gif" /> : null)

  // all you need to do is to surround your JSX with <Combinator> element
  return (
    <Combinator>
      <div>
        Select Reddit:
        <select value={reddit} onChange={e => setReddit(e.target.value)}>
          <option value="reactjs">/r/reactjs</option>
          <option value="javascript">/r/javascript</option>
          <option value="ReactiveProgramming">/r/ReactiveProgramming</option>
        </select>
        {loadingIndicator}
        <hr />
        <ul>
          {posts.map(posts => posts.map(post => (
            <li>{post.title}</li>
          )))}
        </ul>
      </div>
    </Combinator>
  )
}

const myReddit = Reddit("ReactiveProgramming")
render(<App model={myReddit} />, document.getElementById("app"))

Installation

npm i --save react react-combinators <your-frp-library>

Currently supported FRP libraries are

rx
baconjs
kefir

API

All API functions and components are implemented for each supported FRP library and they are accessible through:

const {<functions/components...>} = require("react-combinators/<your-frp-library>")

`<Combinator>`

Higher order component that "wraps" the observables from its children and returns a virtual dom element that gets updated by changes in any of its child elements. Combinator components should be used at the top-level of your React component.

Usage:

import {Combinator} from "react-combinators/<your-frp-library>"

function MyApp(observable) {
  return (
    <Combinator>
      <span>My observable value: {observable}</span>
    </Combinator>
  )
}

`combineVDOM`

Higher order function that transforms a virtual dom tree containing observables to an observable that returns the same virtual dom where the observables are replaced with their values. Same as combine* functions in FRP libraries but this one is optimized for virtual dom.

Usage (example with Bacon.js):

const a = Bacon.constant(10)
const b = Bacon.constant(20)
const vdom = combineVDOM(
  <div>{a} + {b} = {Bacon.combineWith(a, b, (a, b) => a + b)}</div>
)
console.log(vdom instanceof Bacon.Property)  // => true

`createComponent`

Creates a reactive component which wraps its observables into React.Component, hence it can be mixed with normal react components.

createComponent takes one function which receives the component's properties as observables and returns an observable containing the rendered virtual dom.

Signature:

createComponent :: ({propsObservales} => Observable(VDOM)) => React.Component