Redux Request Manager

Attaches a lightweight object to window which tracks request history as a tree and provides a simple interface for tracking actions going out through redux-api-middleware or internally.

Event timestamps are stored as ISO strings, and request ids (or, if none exist, 'GLOBAL') as well as action argument values are nested in the tree.

An example window.actionLogs object looks something like this:

{
  "SOME_ACTION": {
     "ID_46": { "REQUEST": "2016-10-06T23:38:46.637Z" },
  },
  "OTHER_ACTION": {
    "ID_46": {
     "SPECIFYINGVALUE1_VALUE2": "2016-10-06T23:38:45.872Z",
    }
  },
  "ACTION_WITHOUT_ID": {
    "GLOBAL": {
      "REQUEST": "2016-10-06T23:38:44.980Z",
      "SUCCESS": "2016-10-06T23:38:45.776Z"
    }
  },
  "NON_API_ACTION_WITHOUT_ID": {
    "GLOBAL": {
      "SPECIFIER1_SPECIFIER2": "2016-10-06T23:38:44.873Z"
    }
  }
}

After the first request has been made with the manager, this object should be universally accessible, and all instances of the request manager will save to and perform checks on this global tree.

Notes on usage

This window-attached tree of request history is obviously inherently insecure. If a public history of which actions have been called when is not appropriate for your app, don't dispatch those actions from the manager, and ignore them in the tracking reducer. However, since this mostly just stores times of requests, the information is generally not a risk to expose.

Also note that redux-request-manager looks in the meta object of API requests/responses to determine which ID to store in the tree. For the below action, the manager would assume the ID is "some-id":

{
  [CALL_API]: {
    types: [
       { type: 'SOME_REQUEST', meta: { id: 'some-id' }, ... },
       // ...
    ]
  }
}

For help producing a request object with meta information, this repo provides an asyncRequestObject helper function.

Getting started

npm install --save redux-request-manager

Incorporating the RequestManager

Add this to your reducers file:

import RequestManager from 'redux-request-manager';

// ...

combineReducers({
  someReducer: reducerFunction,
  rm: RM.actionTrackerReducer([
    'ARRAY', 'OF', 'ACTIONS', 'NOT', 'TO', 'BE', 'TRACKED'
  ])
})

This will add a reducer function which tracks every action that hits your store -- both local action and API requests, successes, and failures.

Unfortunately, there can be a bit of a delay for the action to hit the store and come back to your component, so if you need to throttle or stop dispatches (say, to a slow API), you'll also want to dispatch using the request manager, like so:

import { connect } from 'react-redux';

import { someApiAction } from '../actions';
import RM from 'redux-request-manager';

function SomeComponent ({ dispatch }) {
  const rm = new RM(dispatch);
  const onClick = () => { rm.dispatch(someApiAction()) };

  return (
    // Component here
  );
}

This will call dispatch and simultaneously store a record of the request, before the redux store has been hit.

Other Methods

Primary Public API

dispatchIfHaventAlready(actionObj)

Ensures that the action is only dispatched if it hasn't been before.

// Will only dispatch once
[0, 1, 2].forEach(() => {
  rm.dispatchIfHaventAlready(apiAction())
})

// Will dispatch 3 times -- once with each number argument, without repeating
[0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2].forEach((number) => {
  rm.dispatchIfHaventAlready(apiAction(number))
})

haventRequestedRecently(actionObj, secondsCutoff)

Returns bool for whether the request has been made in within the given cutoff (defaults to 40s), or the requestThrottleSeconds number passed in at initialization.

const rm = new RequestManager(dispatch, { requestThrottleSeconds: 5 });

// True if it's been requested in last 5 seconds
rm.haveRequestedRecently(apiAction(number));

haveSucceededSinceCutoff(actionObj, secondsCutoff)

Returns bool for whether the request has succeeded within the given cutoff (defaults to 300s), or the freshnessCutoffSeconds number passed in at initialization.

const rm = new RequestManager(dispatch, { freshenessCutoffSeconds: 120 });

// True if it's succeeded in the last two minutes
rm.haveSucceededSinceCutoff(apiAction(number));

flattenedLogs(object)

Returns a flat array representing all actions dispatched.

// Defaults to logging the window.actionLogs object, but can be
// given a different object, as well as a second arg which will be prepended
// to each element in the flattened log
rm.flattenedLogs()

Path Logging Functions

writeLog(objectPath, timestamp)

Given a string object-notation path to the logging location and a timestampt for that action, logs it to the actionLogs object.

// ie a log for a successful API hit for SOME_ACTION for user 36
rm.writeLog('36.SOME_ACTION.SUCCESS', "2017-01-06T19:59:02.323Z");

findLog(objectPath)

Returns the timestamp for a given action, if found.

rm.findLog('36.SOME_ACTION.SUCCESS') // "2017-01-06T19:59:02.323Z"

removeLog(objectPath)

Deletes the log at the given path from the actionLogs object, erasing history of that request.

writeLogFromAction(action)

Like writeLog, but takes an action and infers the path. Takes timestamp from action.now or sets it to the current ISO string.

findLogFromAction(action, specifiedEnd)

Like findLog, but takes an action and action ending (ie 'REQUEST' or 'SUCCESS'), and finds the log for that event for that action.

pathToLogFromAction(action)

Given an action, returns the path to its timestamp in the window.actionLogs object. Takes synchronous actions, returning async actions, or emitting asyncActions (with an array of objects defining type). In this last case, it returns the path to the 'REQUEST' timestamp.

Separate imports

Several additional helper methods are exported alongside the RequestManager class:

Action creator functions

asyncRequestObject

Takes as type string base, an endpoint, and an options object, and returns an FSAA.

import { asyncRequestObject } from 'redux-request-manager';

const requestGithub = (owner, repo) => asyncActionObject(
  'GITHUB_REPO',
  `https://api.github.com/repos/${owner}/${repo}`,
  {
    meta: { id: repo } // Will be stored by RequestManager under this ID
    // other keys include
    // - headerAdditions (ContentType and Accept) pre-set
    // - data object
    // - method (defaults to 'GET')
  }
);

// In a component -- sets whole react-api-middleware chain going
dispatch(requestGithub('sashafklein', 'redux-request-manager'))

Action parser functions

getResponseTypesFromAction(apiAction)

Given an API action, returns an array of type strings.

import { getResponseTypesFromAction } from 'redux-request-manager';
const responseTypes = getResponseTypesFromAction(apiAction(1));
responseTypes.map(type => type.split('_')[1]); // ['REQUEST', 'SUCCESS', 'FAILURE']

parseActionType(typeString)

Given a type string, returns an object with its base and end.

getIDFromAction(apiAction)

Assuming an ID attached to the meta of the response, parses out that ID.