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#redux-form

redux-form works with React Redux to enable an html form in React to use Redux to store all of its state.

Table of Contents

• Installation
• Release Notes
• Benefits - Why use this library?
  • Unidirectional Data Flow
  • Redux Dev Tools
  • Stateless Components
• Implementation Guide <-------------- Start here!
  • A Simple Form Component
  • ES7 Decorator Sugar - ⚠️ Experimental! ⚠️
  • Binding Action Creators
  • Synchronous Validation - Client Side
  • Asynchronous Validation - Server Side
  • Submitting Your Form
  • Responding to Other Actions
  • Editing Multiple Records
  • Calculating props from Form Data
• API
  • reduxForm(formName, validate?)
  • reduxForm().async(asyncValidate, ...fields?)
  • props - The props passed in to your form component by redux-form
  • Action Creators - Advanced
• Working Demo

Installation

npm install --save redux-form

Release Notes

This project follows SemVer and each release is posted on the Release Notes page.

Benefits

Why would anyone want to do this, you ask? React a perfectly good way of keeping state in each component! The reasons are threefold.

Unidirectional Data Flow

For the same reason that React and Flux is superior to Angular's bidirectional data binding. Tracking down bugs is much simpler when the data all flows through one dispatcher.

Redux Dev Tools

When used in conjunction with Redux Dev Tools, you can fast forward and rewind through your form data entry to better find bugs.

Stateless Components

By removing the state from your form components, you inherently make them easier to understand, test, and debug. The React philosophy is to always try to use props instead of state when possible.

Implementation Guide

STEP 1: The first thing that you have to do is to give the redux-form reducer to Redux. You will only have to do this once, no matter how many form components your app uses.

import { createStore, combineReducers } from 'redux';
import { reducer as formReducer } from 'redux-form';
const reducers = {
  // ... your other reducers here ...
  form: formReducer   // it is recommended that you use the key 'form'
}
const reducer = combineReducers(reducers);
const store = createStore(reducer);

STEP 2: Wrap your form component with reduxForm(). reduxForm() creates a Higher Order Component that expects a dispatch prop and a slice of the Redux store where all the redux-form data is stored as a form prop. These should be provided by React Redux's connect() function.

A Simple Form Component

You will need to wrap your form component both with React Redux's connect() function and with redux-form's reduxForm() function.

import React, {Component, PropTypes} from 'react';
import {connect} from 'react-redux';
import reduxForm from 'redux-form';
import contactValidation from './contactValidation';

class ContactForm extends Component {
  static propTypes = {
    data: PropTypes.object.isRequired,
    errors: PropTypes.object.isRequired,
    handleBlur: PropTypes.func.isRequired,
    handleChange: PropTypes.func.isRequired,
    handleSubmit: PropTypes.func.isRequired
  }
  
  render() {
    const {
      data: {name, address, phone},
      errors, touched, handleBlur, handleChange, handleSubmit
    } = this.props;
    return (
      <form onSubmit={handleSubmit}>
        <label>Name</label>
        <input type="text" 
               value={name} 
               onChange={handleChange('name')} 
               onBlur={handleBlur('name')}/>
        {errors.name && touched.name ? <div>{errors.name}</div>}
        
        <label>Address</label>
        <input type="text" 
               value={address} 
               onChange={handleChange('address')} 
               onBlur={handleBlur('address')}/>
        {errors.address && touched.address ? <div>{errors.address}</div>}
        
        <label>Phone</label>
        <input type="text" 
               value={phone} 
               onChange={handleChange('phone')} 
               onBlur={handleBlur('phone')}/>
        {errors.phone && touched.phone ? <div>{errors.phone}</div>}
        
        <button onClick={handleSubmit}>Submit</button>
      </form>
    );
  }
}

// apply reduxForm() and include synchronous validation
ContactForm = reduxForm('contact', ['name', 'address', 'phone'], contactValidation)(ContactForm);

// ------- HERE'S THE IMPORTANT BIT -------
function mapStateToProps(state) {
  return { form: state.form };  // if you mounted the reducer at 'form' in Step 1
}
// apply connect() to bind it to Redux state
ContactForm = connect(mapStateToProps)(ContactForm);

// export the wrapped component
export default ContactForm;

Notice that we're just using vanilla <input> elements there is no state in the ContactForm component. handleSubmit will call the function passed into ContactForm's onSubmit prop, if and only if the synchronous validation passes. See Submitting Your Form.

ES7 Decorator Sugar

Using ES7 decorator proposal, the example above could be written as:

@connect(state => ({ form: state.form }))
@reduxForm('contact', ['name', 'address', 'phone'], contactValidation)
export default class ContactForm extends Component {

Much nicer, don't you think?

You can enable it with Babel Stage 1. Note that decorators are experimental, and this syntax might change or be removed later.

Binding Action Creators

If your form component also needs other redux action creators - and you will if you are performaing your server submit in your form component - you cannot simply use the default bindActionCreators() from redux, because that will remove dispatch from the props the connect() passes along, and reduxForm needs dispatch. You will need to also include dispatch in your mapDispatchToProps() function. So change this...

import {bindActionCreators} from `redux`;
...
function mapDispatchToProps(dispatch) {
  return bindActionCreators(actionCreators, dispatch);
}
ContactForm = connect(mapStateToProps, mapDispatchToProps)(ContactForm);

...to...

import {bindActionCreators} from `redux`;
...
function mapDispatchToProps(dispatch) {
  return {
    ...bindActionCreators(actionCreators, dispatch),
    dispatch  // <----- passing dispatch, too
  };
}
ContactForm = connect(mapStateToProps, mapDispatchToProps)(ContactForm);

Synchronous Validation

You may optionally supply a validation function, which is in the form ({}) => {} and takes in all your data and spits out error messages as well as a valid flag. For example:

function contactValidation(data) {
  const errors = { valid: true };
  if(!data.name) {
    errors.name = 'Required';
    errors.valid = false;
  }
  if(data.address && data.address.length > 50) {
    errors.address = 'Must be fewer than 50 characters';
    errors.valid = false;
  }
  if(!data.phone) {
    errors.phone = 'Required';
    errors.valid = false;
  } else if(!/\d{3}-\d{3}-\d{4}/.test(data.phone)) {
    errors.phone = 'Phone must match the form "999-999-9999"'
    errors.valid = false;
  }
  return errors;
}

You get the idea.

You must return a boolean valid flag in the result.

Asynchronous Validation

Async validation can be achieved by calling an additional function on the function returned by reduxForm() and passing it an asynchronous function that returns a promise that will resolve to validation errors of the format that the synchronous validation function generates. So this...

// apply reduxForm() and include synchronous validation
ContactForm = reduxForm('contact', ['name', 'address', 'phone'], contactValidation)(ContactForm);

...changes to this:

function asyncValidation(data) {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    const errors = {valid: true};
    // do async validation
    resolve(errors);
  });
}

// apply reduxForm() and include synchronous AND asynchronous validation
ContactForm = reduxForm('contact', ['name', 'address', 'phone'], contactValidation)
  .async(asyncValidation)(ContactForm);

Optionally, if you want asynchronous validation to be triggered when one or more of your form fields is blurred, you may pass those fields to the async() function along with the asynchronous validation function. Like so:

ContactForm = reduxForm('contact', ['name', 'address', 'phone'], contactValidation)
  .async(asyncValidation, 'name', 'phone')(ContactForm);

With that call, the asynchronous validation will be called when either name or phone is blurred. Assuming that they have their onBlur={handleBlur('name')} properties properly set up.

NOTE! If you only want asynchronous validation, you may leave out the synchronous validation function. And if you only want it to be run on submit, you may leave out the fields, as well.

ContactForm = reduxForm('contact', ['name', 'address', 'phone']).async(asyncValidation)(ContactForm);

Submitting Your Form

The recommended way to submit your form is to create your form component as shown above, using the handleSubmit prop, and then pass an onSubmit prop to your form component.

import React, {Component, PropTypes} from 'redux-form';
import {connect} from 'redux';
import {initialize} from 'redux-form';

class ContactPage extends Component {
  static propTypes = {
    dispatch: PropTypes.func.isRequired
  }
  
  handleSubmit(data) {
    console.log('Submission received!', data);
    this.props.dispatch(initialize('contactForm', {})); // clear form
  }
  
  render() {
    return (
      <div>
        <h1>Contact Information</h1>
        
        <ContactForm onSubmit={this.handleSubmit.bind(this)}/>
      </div>
    );
  }
}

export default connect()(ContactPage);  // adds dispatch prop

Or, if you wish to do your submission directly from your decorated form component, you may pass a function to handleSubmit. To abbreviate the example shown above:

class ContactForm extends Component {
  static propTypes = {
    // ...
    handleSubmit: PropTypes.func.isRequired
  }
  
  saveForm(data) {
    // make server call to save the data
  }
  
  render() {
    const {
      // ...
      handleSubmit
    } = this.props;
    return (
      <form onSubmit={handleSubmit(this.saveForm)}> // <--- pass saveForm
        // ...
      </form>
    );
  }
}

Responding to Other Actions

Part of the beauty of the flux architecture is that all the reducers (or "stores", in canonical Flux terminology) receive all the actions, and they can modify their data based on any of them. For example, say you have a login form, and when your login submission fails, you want to clear out the password field. Your login submission is part of another reducer/actions system, but your form can still respond.

Rather than just using the vanilla reducer from redux-form, you can augment it to do other things by calling the plugin() function.

import {reducer as formReducer} from 'redux-form';
import {AUTH_LOGIN_FAIL} from '../actions/actionTypes';
const loginFormReducer = createFormReducer('loginForm', ['email', 'password']);

const reducers = {
  // ... your other reducers here ...
  form: formReducer.plugin({
    login: (state, action) => { // <------ 'login' is name of form given to reduxForm()
      switch(action.type) {
        case AUTH_LOGIN_FAIL:
          return {
            ...state,
            data: {
              ...state.data,
              password: ''     // <----- clear password field
            },
            touched: {
              ...state.touched,
              password: false // <------ also set password to 'untouched'
            }
          };
        default:
          return state;
      }
    }
  })
}
const reducer = combineReducers(reducers);
const store = createStore(reducer);

Editing Multiple Records

Editing multiple records on the same page is trivially easy with redux-form. All you have to do is to pass a unique formKey prop into your form element, and initialize the data with initializeWithKey() instead of initialize(). Let's say we want to edit many contacts on the same page.

import React, {Component, PropTypes} from 'react';
import {connect} from 'react-redux';
import {initializeWithKey} from 'redux-form';
import {bindActionCreators} from 'redux';
import ContactForm from './ContactForm';

class ContactsPage extends Component {
  static propTypes = {
    contacts: PropTypes.array.isRequired,
    initializeWithKey: PropTypes.func.isRequired
  }
  
  componentWillMount() {
    const {contacts, initializeWithKey} = this.props;
    contacts.forEach(function (contact) {
      initializeWithKey('contact', String(contact.id), contact);
    });
  }
  
  handleSubmit(id, data) {
    // send to server
  }
  
  render() {
    const {contacts} = this.props;
    return (
      <div>
        {contacts.map(function (contact) {
          return <ContactForm
                   key={contact.id}                  // required by react
                   formKey={String(contact.id)}      // required by redux-form
                   onSubmit={this.handleSubmit.bind(this, contact.id)}/>
        })}
      </div>
    );
  }
}

function mapStateToProps(state) {
  return { contacts: state.contacts.data };
}

function mapDispatchToProps(dispatch) {
  return bindActionCreators({ initializeWithKey }, dispatch),
}

// apply connect() to bind it to Redux state
ContactsPage = connect(mapStateToProps, mapDispatchToProps)(ContactsPage);

// export the wrapped component
export default ContactPage;

Calculating props from Form Data

You may want to have some calculated props, perhaps using reselect selectors based on the values of the data in your form. You might be tempted to do this in the mapStateToProps given to connect(). This will not work. The reason is that the form contents in the Redux store are lazily initialized, so state.form.contacts.data.name will fail, because state.form.contacts will be null.

The recommended way to accomplish this is to use yet another Higher Order Component decorator, such as map-props, like so:

import mapProps from 'map-props';
...
// FIRST map props
ContactForm = mapProps({
  hasName: props => !!props.data.name
  hasPhone: props => !!props.data.phone
})(ContactForm);

// THEN apply reduxForm() and include synchronous validation
ContactForm = reduxForm('contact', ['name', 'address', 'phone'], contactValidation)(ContactForm);
...

Or, in ES7 land... javascript @connect(state => ({ form: state.form })) @reduxForm('contact', ['name', 'address', 'phone'], contactValidation) @mapProps({ hasName: props => !!props.data.name hasPhone: props => !!props.data.phone }) export default class ContactForm extends Component {

API

reduxForm(formName:string, fields:Array<string>, validate:Function?, touchOnBlur:boolean?, touchOnChange:boolean?)

-formName : string

the name of your form and the key to where your form's state will be mounted, under the redux-form reducer, in the Redux store

- fields : Array<string>

a list of all your fields in your form. This is used for marking all of the fields as touched on submit.

-validate : Function [optional]

your synchronous validation function. Defaults to () => ({valid: true})

touchOnBlur : boolean [optional]

marks fields to touched when the blur action is fired. Defaults to true

touchOnChange : boolean [optional]

marks fields to touched when the change action is fired. Defaults to false

reduxForm().async(asyncValidate:Function, ...fields:String?)

-asyncValidate : Function

a function that takes all the form data and returns a Promise that will resolve to an object of validation errors in the form { field1: <string>, field2: <string>, valid: <boolean> } just like the synchronous validation function. See Aynchronous Validation for more details.

-...fields : String [optional]

field names for which handleBlur should trigger a call to the asyncValidate function

props

The props passed into your decorated component will be:

-asyncValidate : Function

a function that may be called to initiate asynchronous validation if asynchronous validation is enabled

-asyncValidating : boolean

true if the asynchronous validation function has been called but has not yet returned.

-data : Object

The form data, in the form { field1: <string>, field2: <string> }

-dirty : boolean

true if the form data has changed from its initialized values. Opposite of pristine.

-errors : Object

All the errors, in the form { field1: <string>, field2: <string> }

-handleBlur(field:string) : Function

Returns a handleBlur function for the field passed.

-handleChange(field:string) : Function

Returns a handleChange function for the field passed.

-handleSubmit : Function

a function meant to be passed to <form onSubmit={handleSubmit}> or to <button onClick={handleSubmit}>. It will run validation, both sync and async, and, if the form is valid, it will call this.props.onSubmit(data) with the contents of the form data.

Optionally, you may also pass your onSubmit function to handleSubmit which will take the place of the onSubmit prop. For example: <form onSubmit={handleSubmit(this.save.bind(this))}>

-initializeForm(data:Object) : Function

Initializes the form data to the given values. All dirty and pristine state will be determined by comparing the current data with these initialized values.

-invalid : boolean

true if the form has validation errors. Opposite of valid.

-pristine: boolean

true if the form data is the same as its initialized values. Opposite of dirty.

-resetForm() : Function

Resets all the values in the form to the initialized state, making it pristine again.

-formKey : String

The same formKey prop that was passed in. See Editing Multiple Records.

-submitting : boolean

Whether or not your form is currently submitting. This prop will only work if you have passed an onSubmit function that returns a promise. It will be true until the promise is resolved or rejected.

-touch(...field:string) : Function

Marks the given fields as "touched" to show errors.

-touched : Object

the touched flags for each field, in the form { field1: <boolean>, field2: <boolean> }

-touchAll() : Function

Marks all fields as "touched" to show errors. should be called on form submission.

-untouch(...field:string) : Function

Clears the "touched" flag for the given fields

-untouchAll() : Function

Clears the "touched" flag for the all fields

-valid : boolean

true if the form passes validation (has no validation errors). Opposite of invalid.

Action Creators

redux-form exports all of its internal action creators, allowing you complete control to dispatch any action you wish. However, it is highly recommended that you use the actions passed as props to your component for most of your needs.

-blur(form:String, field:String, value:String)

Saves the value and, if you have touchOnBlur enabled, marks the field as touched.

-change(form:String, field:String, value:String)

Saves the value and, if you have touchOnChange enabled, marks the field as touched.

-initialize(form:String, data:Object)

Sets the initial values in the form with which future data values will be compared to calculate dirty and pristine. The data parameter should only contain String values.

-initializeWithKey(form:String, formKey, data:Object)

Used when editing multiple records with the same form component. See Editing Multiple Records.

-reset(form:String)

Resets the values in the form back to the values past in with the most recent initialize action.

-startAsyncValidation(form:String)

Flips the asyncValidating flag true.

-stopAsyncValidation(form:String, errors:Object)

Flips the asyncValidating flag false and populates asyncErrors.

-touch(form:String, ...fields:String)

Marks all the fields passed in as touched.

-untouch(form:String, ...fields:String)

Resets the 'touched' flag for all the fields passed in.

Working Demo

Check out the react-redux-universal-hot-example project to see redux-form in action.

This is an extremely young library, so the API may change. Comments and feedback welcome.