redux-api-middleware

Redux middleware for calling an API.

This middleware receives Redux Standard API-calling Actions and dispatches Flux Standard Actions as explained below.

Flux Standard Actions (FSA)

Recall the definition of a Flux Standard Action.

An action MUST

• be a plain JavaScript object,
• have a type property.

An action MAY

• have an error property,
• have a payload property,
• have a meta property.

An action MUST NOT

• include properties other than type, payload, error and meta.

type

The type of an action identifies to the consumer the nature of the action that has occurred. Two actions with the same type MUST be strictly equivalent (using ===). By convention, type is usually a string constant or a Symbol.

payload

The optional payload property MAY be any type of value. It represents the payload of the action. Any information about the action that is not the type or status of the action should be part of the payload field.

By convention, if error is true, the payload SHOULD be an error object. This is akin to rejecting a promise with an error object.

error

The optional error property MAY be set to true if the action represents an error.

An action whose error is true is analogous to a rejected Promise. By convention, the payload SHOULD be an error object.

If error has any other value besides true, including undefined and null, the action MUST NOT be interpreted as an error.

meta

The optional meta property MAY be any type of value. It is intended for any extra information that is not part of the payload.

A Redux Standard API-calling Action conforms to a schema that comes close to being a superset of that of an FSA.

Redux Standard API-calling Actions (RSAA)

A Redux Standard API-calling Action MUST

• be a plain JavaScript object,
• have a [CALL_API] property, where CALL_API is a Symbol defined in, and exported by redux-api-middleware.

A Redux Standard API-calling Action MAY

• have a payload property,
• have a meta property.

A Redux Standard API-calling Action MUST NOT

• include properties other than [CALL-API], payload, and meta.

[CALL_API]

The [CALL_API] property MUST

• be a plain JavaScript Object,
• have an endpoint property,
• have a method property,
• have a types property.

The [CALL_API] property MAY

• have a body property,
• have a headers property,
• have a schema property,
• have a bailout property.

The [CALL_API] property MUST NOT

• include properties other than endpoint, method, types, body, headers, schema and bailout.

[CALL_API].endpoint

The [CALL_API].endpoint property must be a string or a function. In the second case, the function SHOULD return a string. It represents the URL endpoint for the API request.

[CALL_API].method

The [CALL_API].method property MUST be one of the strings GET, POST, PUT or DELETE (in any mixture of lowercase and uppercase letters). It represents the HTTP method for the API request.

[CALL_API].types

The [CALL_API].types property MUST be an array of length 3, representing the REQUEST, SUCCESS and FAILURE states of the API call, in that order. By convention, each of the types is usually a string constant or a Symbol.

[CALL_API].body

The optional [CALL_API].body property MUST be a plain JavaScript object. It represents the body of the API request.

[CALL_API].headers

The optional [CALL_API].headers property MUST be a plain JavaScript object. It represents the headers of the API request.

[CALL_API].schema

The optional [CALL_API].schema property MUST be a normalizr schema. It specifies with which normalizr schema we should process the API response

[CALL_API].bailout

The optional [CALL_API].bailout property MUST be a boolean or a function. When it returns a falsy value, the API request will not be made, and no FSA action will be dispatched to the next middleware.

payload

The optional payload property MAY be any type of value.

meta

The optional meta property MAY be any type of value. It is intended for any extra information that is not part of the payload or the [CALL_API] data.

What this middleware does

This middleware expects an RSAA and dispatches FSAs in the following way.

• An FSA with the REQUEST type is dispatched to the next middleware as soon as the RSAA comes in; the payload and meta properties of this FSA are those of the original RSAA.
• If the request is successful, an FSA with the SUCCESS type is dispatched to the next middleware; the payload property of this FSA is a merge of the original RSAA's payload property and the JSON response from the server; the meta property of this FSA is that of the original RSAA.
• If the request is unsuccessful, an FSA with the FAILURE type is dispatched to the next middleware; the payload property of this FSA is set to the error object of the request; the meta property of this FSA is the same as that of the original RSAA; the error property of this FSA is set to true.

If the incoming action does not contain a [CALL_API] key, it is passed to the next middleware without any modifications.

Example

actionCreators.js

import { CALL_API } from 'redux_api';
import { Schema } from 'normalizr';

const userSchema = new Schema({...});

export function fetchUser(userId, schema = userSchema) {
  return {
    [CALL_API]: {
      types: ['FETCH_USER.REQUEST', 'FETCH_USER.SUCCESS', 'FETCH_USER.FAILURE'],
      endpoint: `/users/${userId}`,
      method: 'GET',
      headers: { credentials: 'same-origin'},
      schema
    },
    payload: { somePayload },
    meta: { someMeta }
  };
}

The headers: { credentials: 'same-origin'} property sends the authentication credentials stored in cookies by an express server using passport (other options might work too).

configureStore.js

import { createStore, applyMiddleware, combineReducers } from 'redux';
import { apiMiddleware } from 'redux-api-middleware';
import reducers from './reducers';

const reducer = combineReducers(reducers);
const createStoreWithMiddleware = applyMiddleware(apiMiddleware)(createStore);

export default function configureStore(initialState) {
  return createStoreWithMiddleware(reducer, initialState);
}

app.js

const store = configureStore(initialState);

Resulting actions

{
  type: 'FETCH_USER.REQUEST',
  payload: { somePayload },
  meta: { someMeta }
}

{
  type: 'FETCH_USER.SUCCESS',
  payload: { ...somePayload, response },
  meta: { someMeta }
}

{
  type: 'FETCH_USER.FAILURE',
  payload: error,
  meta: { someMeta }
  error: true
}

Utilities

Apart from the middleware above, redux-api-middleware exposes the following utility function.

isRSAA(action)

Returns true if action is RSAA-compliant.

Installation

npm install redux-api-middleware

Tests

npm test

License

MIT

Acknowledgements

The code in this module is heavily based upon that in the real-world example in the redux repository, which I believe is due to Dan Abramov. Please correct me if I am wrong.