react-external-subject

Turn third-party mutable sources into React-safe source

Install

yarn add react-external-subject

Usage

import {
  ExternalSubjectSynchronizer,
  createExternalSubject,
  useExternalSubject,
  } from 'react-external-subject';

// An example of a mutable source
let source = 0;

// Wrap our mutable source into an external subject
const subject = createExternalSubject({
  read: () => source,
});

// Create a component that reads from our mutable source
function ObserverA() {
  const value = useExternalSubject(subject, false);
  return <h1>Value: {value}</h1>;
}

// Create a component similar to ObserverA but suspends
function ObserverB() {
  const value = useExternalSubject(subject, true);
  return <h1>Value: {value}</h1>;
}

// Create a component with a render-time side-effect
function Effectful() {
  // Update our source
  source = 1337;
  return <h1>Effectful: {source}</h1>;
}

function App() {
  return (
    <ExternalSubjectSynchronizer>
      <ObserverA />
      <Effectful />
      {/*
        By the time ObserverB renders, the source has already 
        updated, creating a "tear".
      */}
      <ObserverB />
    </ExternalSubjectSynchronizer>
  );
}

Features

react-external-subject is a library that wraps mutable sources not usually managed by React into a React-safe external subject.

When a component subscribes to an external subject, the external subject maintains and keeps track of a state that is safe for all components to share and render.

If it detects a tear in between renders, or between render and commit phase, the external subject asynchronously requests an update to the safe state and notifies all components to update their received value.

Components with suspense mode active will suspend until they receive the new safe state.

Memoization

External subjects may receive a memoization option through options.shouldUpdate. This function is used internally to compare the proposed state and the safe state. By default, it uses the Object.is function.

Subscription

External subjects may subscribe to a mutable source through options.subscribe. This function receives a callback that is used to subscribe to the source for receiving updates. options.subscribe may return a cleanup function, potentially for cleaning subscription.

Lazy Subscription

External subjects may lazily subscribe/unsubscribe through options.lazySubscribe. When set to true, subjects only begins subscribing to the mutable source when a listener is attached to them (e.g. through useExternalSubject.). If the subject has zero listeners, the subject automatically unsubscribes. By default, external subjects subscribes immediately on creation and never unsubscribes.

Hook

useExternalSubject(subject, suspense = false) is used to observe external subjects' state. If suspense is set to false, useExternalSubject will return the last safe state if it detects a tearing during render, otherwise, useExternalSubject suspends the component until the new safe state is updated. Regardless, useExternalSubject will always guarantee that the component will receive a state that is safe to render as well as all of the components will receive the same value, preventing the UI from tearing.

Alternatives

• use-subscription provides a mechanism that allows the component to update immediately when it detects that the value has gone stale between render and commit phase. However, this does not prevent the component from tearing during render phase alone.
• useMutableSource is an upcoming first-party React hook that wraps mutable sources into React-safe (Concurrent-safe, that is) mutable sources. The hook is also partially the basis of this whole library, the difference is that useMutableSource keeps tracks of the mutable source's version in contrast with useExternalSubject that keeps tracks the state of the mutable source. useMutableSource also works with the internal Fiber architecture to handle tearing.

License

MIT © lxsmnsyc