d3-appendselect

v2.0.0

Published

3 years ago

Idempotent append operations for D3 selection.

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hobbes7878

d3 d3-module

d3-appendselect

Idempotent append operations for non-data-bound D3 selections.

Install

yarn add d3-appendselect

... or ...

npm add d3-appendselect

Use

import * as d3 from 'd3';
// or use individual d3 modules...
import * as d3 from 'd3-selection';

import { appendSelect } from 'd3-appendselect';

d3.selection.prototype.appendSelect = appendSelect;

const g = d3.select('body')
  .appendSelect('svg')
   .attr('width', 250)
   .attr('height', 600)
  .appendSelect('g.chart-container')
   .attr('transform', 'translate(10, 10)');

const circles = g.selectAll('g.circles')
  .data(myData)
  .join('g')
  .attr('class', 'circles');

circles.appendSelect('circle')
  .attr('r', d => d.r);

circles.appendSelect('text')
  .text(d => d.label);
  // ... etc.

Why this?

Idempotent functions produce the same result no matter when or how often they're called.

If you've read Mike Bostock's Towards Reusable Charts, we can make charts reusable by writing them as configurable functions.

Idempotence takes that reusable pattern the next step by making those functions extremely predictable. An idempotent chart function always produces the same chart elements regardless of the context in which the function is called. It makes your chart much easier to use and reason about and, as an extra benefit, easier to write!

d3-appendselect is a shortcut for making non-data-bound append operations idempotent. That helps you write chart functions that act like modern components and will fit naturally with other "pure"-component frameworks like React, Svelte, Vue and more.

Idempotence in D3

If you've ever worked with D3 and data, you've already come across idempotence. Data-bound operations in D3 are naturally idempotent. For example:

d3.select('ul')
  .selectAll('li')
  .data(['a', 'b', 'c'])
  .join('li')
  .text(d => d);

Wrapping that code in a function and calling it multiple times will still only produce three list items.

function makeList() {
  d3.select('ul')
    .selectAll('li')
    .data(['a', 'b', 'c'])
    .join('li')
    .text(d => d);
}

makeList();
makeList();
setTimeout(() => makeList(), 1000);

// 👇 Still just three list items...
// <ul>
//   <li>a</li>
//   <li>b</li>
//   <li>c</li>
// </ul>

But now let's add a non-data-bound operation, append:

function makeList() {
  d3.select('body')
    .append('ul') // 👈 Not data-bound
    .selectAll('li')
    .data(['a', 'b', 'c'])
    .join('li')
    .text(d => d);
}

Now calling the same function produces a very different result:


makeList();
makeList();
setTimeout(() => makeList(), 1000);

// 👇Whoops, 3 lists!
// <body>
//   <ul> ... </ul>
//   <ul> ... </ul>
//   <ul> ... </ul>
// </body>

d3-appendselect helps you write idempotent append operations for non-data-bound elements by extending D3's native selection with a function that will either append or select an element depending on whether it exists already.

Using it like this...

function makeList() {
  d3.select('body')
    .appendSelect('ul') // 👈 appends ul first, then selects existing ul
    .selectAll('li')
    .data(['a', 'b', 'c'])
    .join('li')
    .text(d => d);
}

... makes your function idempotent, so you can call your chart function over and over, producing exactly the same result.

Why is that predictability important?

Beyond the simple examples above, using appendSelect gives complex charts extremely predictable APIs, which helps them work in almost any JavaScript environment, especially within modern component frameworks that rely heavily on functional programming concepts like pure functions.

Charts written with appendSelect instead of append are easier to think about because they don't have side effects that are contingent on the context in which the chart is called. Call it once, twice, 100 times, an idempotent chart just works and by guaranteeing to produce the same chart elements, you don't have to think about how to integrate your chart's state with the state of the app that uses it.

Writing reusable charts with appendSelect is also easier and makes your chart's code simpler. The syntax is just... nice!

So, for example, instead of writing code that forks off different behaviors depending on the state of a chart like this...

function setUpChart() {
  d3.select('body')
    .append('svg')
    .append('g');
};


function drawChart(myData) {
  const g = d3.select('body')
    .select('svg')
    .attr('width', width)
    .select('g');

  g.selectAll('circle')
    .data(myData)
    // etc. ...
}

... you can simply write your code top-to-bottom:

function drawChart(myData) {
  const g = d3.select('body')
    .appendSelect('svg')
    .attr('width', width)
    .appendSelect('g');

  g.selectAll('circle')
    .data(myData)
    // etc. ...
}

Just replace instances of non-data-bound append with appendSelect in your code and your chart becomes a first-class "pure" component that will plug in just about anywhere.

In context

Writing idempotent chart functions with d3-appendselect makes it easy to write charts that work well with other component frameworks.

Take a basic example in React:

const drawMyChart = (selection, data) => {
  const svg = d3.select(selection)
    .appendSelect('svg');
  
  svg.selectAll('circle')
    .data(data)
    .join('circle')
    // etc...
}

const MyReactComponent = (props) => {
  const { myData } = props;

  useEffect(() => {
    drawMyChart(myChartContainer.current, myData);
  }, [myData]);

  return (
    <div ref={myChartContainer}></div>
  );
};

Your React component drives when to call your chart function -- updating whenever the data prop changes -- but doesn't need to worry about the internal state of your chart and whether it's already appended non-data-bound elements like svg.

At scale

At Reuters, d3-appendselect is a key part of how we build modular charts that plug in to larger applications.

One alternative to this approach has been using D3 strictly for a subset of its utility functions and giving control of the DOM to whatever component framework you're building in -- React, Svelte, whatever. But D3 happens to be really good at building charts already. We just need to build them idempotently so they work better alongside other components that require functional "purity". d3-appendselect is a tiny utility that gets us there.

That lets us develop charts that can be used in whatever context we need them without locking us into a particular JS framework, so a chart built this way can work across a React, a Svelte, a Vue or a vanilla JS project with no changes to the module code.

You can check out our template for chart modules to see d3-appendselect in action.

API Reference

# selection.appendSelect(selector) <>

Takes a selector representing a DOM element and either appends that element to the selection if it doesn't exist or selects it if it does.

The selector should be a valid CSS selector of the element you want to append, with or without an id attribute or one or more class names, for example, div, div#myId or div.myClass.another.

appendSelect will select and return the first element matching your CSS selector, if one exists, so you should make sure your selector is unique within the context of the selection.

You can chain appendSelect with other methods just as you would with either append or select.

selection
  .appendSelect('svg')
  .attr('width', 500)
  .attr('height', 100)
  .appendSelect('g')
  .attr('transform', 'translate(10, 10)');

// <svg width="500" height="100">
//   <g transform="translate(10, 10)"></g>
// </svg>

You can also use appendSelect after data-bound joins to create complex peer elements.

const users = selection.selectAll('div.user')
  .data(someUsers)
  .join('div')
  .attr('class', 'user');

users.appendSelect('figure')
  .appendSelect('img')
  .attr('src', d => d.avatar);

users.appendSelect('p')
  .appendSelect('span.name')
  .text(d => d.name);

users.appendSelect('p')
  .appendSelect('span.age')
  .text(d => d.age);

// <div class="user">
//   <figure>
//     <img src="https://...">
//   </figure>
//   <p>
//     <span class="name">Jane Doe</span>
//     <span class="age">23</span>
//   </p>
// </div>

Testing

yarn test

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Readme

d3-appendselect

Install

Use

Why this?

Idempotence in D3

Why is that predictability important?

In context

At scale

API Reference

Testing