How to work with relational data in Redux?

Question

In the application that I create, there are many entities and relationships (relational database). To get an idea, there are 25+ entities with any type of relationship between them (one-to-many, many-to-many).

The application uses React + Redux. To obtain data from the Store, we use the Reselect library.

The problem I am facing is when I try to get an entity with its relationship from the Repository.

To better explain the problem, I created a simple demo application that has a similar architecture. I will talk about the most important code base. In the end I will include a fragment (violin) to play with it.

Demo app

Business logic

We have books and authors. There is one author in one book. One author has many books. As much as possible.

const authors = [{
  id: 1,
  name: 'Jordan Enev',
  books: [1]
}];

const books = [{
  id: 1,
  name: 'Book 1',
  category: 'Programming',
  authorId: 1
}];

Redux Store

The store is organized in a flat structure compatible with the best practices of Redux - Normalization of the state form .

Here is the initial state for both books and authors:

const initialState = {
  // Keep entities, by id:
  // { 1: { name: '' } }
  byIds: {},
  // Keep entities ids
  allIds:[]
};

Components

Components are organized as containers and presentations.

Component

<App /> acts as a container (receives all the necessary data):

const mapStateToProps = state => ({
  books: getBooksSelector(state),
  authors: getAuthorsSelector(state),
  healthAuthors: getHealthAuthorsSelector(state),
  healthAuthorsWithBooks: getHealthAuthorsWithBooksSelector(state)
});

const mapDispatchToProps = {
  addBooks, addAuthors
}

const App = connect(mapStateToProps, mapDispatchToProps)(View);

Component

<View />intended for demonstration purposes only. It pushes dummy data into the repository and displays all presentation components as <Author />, <Book />.

Selectors

For simple selectors, this looks simple:

/**
 * Get Books Store entity
 */
const getBooks = ({books}) => books;

/**
 * Get all Books
 */
const getBooksSelector = createSelector(getBooks,
    (books => books.allIds.map(id => books.byIds[id]) ));


/**
 * Get Authors Store entity
 */
const getAuthors = ({authors}) => authors;

/**
 * Get all Authors
 */
const getAuthorsSelector = createSelector(getAuthors,
    (authors => authors.allIds.map(id => authors.byIds[id]) ));

This gets messy when you have a selector that computes / queries relational data. The demo application includes the following examples:

• , .
• , .

:

/**
 * Get array of Authors ids,
 * which have books in 'Health' category
 */  
const getHealthAuthorsIdsSelector = createSelector([getAuthors, getBooks],
    (authors, books) => (
    authors.allIds.filter(id => {
      const author = authors.byIds[id];
      const filteredBooks = author.books.filter(id => (
        books.byIds[id].category === 'Health'
      ));

      return filteredBooks.length;
    })
)); 

/**
 * Get array of Authors,
 * which have books in 'Health' category
 */   
const getHealthAuthorsSelector = createSelector([getHealthAuthorsIdsSelector, getAuthors],
    (filteredIds, authors) => (
    filteredIds.map(id => authors.byIds[id])
)); 

/**
 * Get array of Authors, together with their Books,
 * which have books in 'Health' category
 */    
const getHealthAuthorsWithBooksSelector = createSelector([getHealthAuthorsIdsSelector, getAuthors, getBooks],
    (filteredIds, authors, books) => (
    filteredIds.map(id => ({
        ...authors.byIds[id],
      books: authors.byIds[id].books.map(id => books.byIds[id])
    }))
));

---

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const { Component } = React
const { combineReducers, createStore } = Redux
const { connect, Provider } = ReactRedux
const { createSelector } = Reselect

/**
 * Initial state for Books and Authors stores
 */
const initialState = {
  byIds: {},
  allIds:[]
}

/**
 * Book Action creator and Reducer
 */

const addBooks = payload => ({
  type: 'ADD_BOOKS',
  payload
})

const booksReducer = (state = initialState, action) => {
  switch (action.type) {
  case 'ADD_BOOKS':
    let byIds = {}
    let allIds = []

    action.payload.map(entity => {
      byIds[entity.id] = entity
      allIds.push(entity.id)
    })

    return { byIds, allIds }
  default:
    return state
  }
}

/**
 * Author Action creator and Reducer
 */

const addAuthors = payload => ({
  type: 'ADD_AUTHORS',
  payload
})

const authorsReducer = (state = initialState, action) => {
  switch (action.type) {
  case 'ADD_AUTHORS':
    let byIds = {}
    let allIds = []

    action.payload.map(entity => {
      byIds[entity.id] = entity
      allIds.push(entity.id)
    })

    return { byIds, allIds }
  default:
    return state
  }
}

/**
 * Presentational components
 */
const Book = ({ book }) => <div>{`Name: ${book.name}`}</div>
const Author = ({ author }) => <div>{`Name: ${author.name}`}</div>

/**
 * Container components
 */

class View extends Component {
  componentWillMount () {
    this.addBooks()
    this.addAuthors()
  }

  /**
   * Add dummy Books to the Store
   */
  addBooks () {
    const books = [{
      id: 1,
      name: 'Programming book',
      category: 'Programming',
      authorId: 1
    }, {
      id: 2,
      name: 'Healthy book',
      category: 'Health',
      authorId: 2
    }]

    this.props.addBooks(books)
  }

  /**
   * Add dummy Authors to the Store
   */
  addAuthors () {
    const authors = [{
      id: 1,
      name: 'Jordan Enev',
      books: [1]
    }, {
      id: 2,
      name: 'Nadezhda Serafimova',
      books: [2]
    }]

    this.props.addAuthors(authors)
  }

  renderBooks () {
    const { books } = this.props

    return books.map(book => <div key={book.id}>
      {`Name: ${book.name}`}
    </div>)
  }

  renderAuthors () {
    const { authors } = this.props

    return authors.map(author => <Author author={author} key={author.id} />)
  }

  renderHealthAuthors () {
    const { healthAuthors } = this.props

    return healthAuthors.map(author => <Author author={author} key={author.id} />)
  }

  renderHealthAuthorsWithBooks () {
    const { healthAuthorsWithBooks } = this.props

    return healthAuthorsWithBooks.map(author => <div key={author.id}>
      <Author author={author} />
      Books:
      {author.books.map(book => <Book book={book} key={book.id} />)}
    </div>)
  }

  render () {
    return <div>
      <h1>Books:</h1> {this.renderBooks()}
      <hr />
      <h1>Authors:</h1> {this.renderAuthors()}
      <hr />
      <h2>Health Authors:</h2> {this.renderHealthAuthors()}
      <hr />
      <h2>Health Authors with loaded Books:</h2> {this.renderHealthAuthorsWithBooks()}
    </div>
  }
};

const mapStateToProps = state => ({
  books: getBooksSelector(state),
  authors: getAuthorsSelector(state),
  healthAuthors: getHealthAuthorsSelector(state),
  healthAuthorsWithBooks: getHealthAuthorsWithBooksSelector(state)
})

const mapDispatchToProps = {
  addBooks, addAuthors
}

const App = connect(mapStateToProps, mapDispatchToProps)(View)

/**
 * Books selectors
 */

/**
 * Get Books Store entity
 */
const getBooks = ({ books }) => books

/**
 * Get all Books
 */
const getBooksSelector = createSelector(getBooks,
  books => books.allIds.map(id => books.byIds[id]))

/**
 * Authors selectors
 */

/**
 * Get Authors Store entity
 */
const getAuthors = ({ authors }) => authors

/**
 * Get all Authors
 */
const getAuthorsSelector = createSelector(getAuthors,
  authors => authors.allIds.map(id => authors.byIds[id]))

/**
 * Get array of Authors ids,
 * which have books in 'Health' category
 */
const getHealthAuthorsIdsSelector = createSelector([getAuthors, getBooks],
  (authors, books) => (
    authors.allIds.filter(id => {
      const author = authors.byIds[id]
      const filteredBooks = author.books.filter(id => (
        books.byIds[id].category === 'Health'
      ))

      return filteredBooks.length
    })
  ))

/**
 * Get array of Authors,
 * which have books in 'Health' category
 */
const getHealthAuthorsSelector = createSelector([getHealthAuthorsIdsSelector, getAuthors],
  (filteredIds, authors) => (
    filteredIds.map(id => authors.byIds[id])
  ))

/**
 * Get array of Authors, together with their Books,
 * which have books in 'Health' category
 */
const getHealthAuthorsWithBooksSelector = createSelector([getHealthAuthorsIdsSelector, getAuthors, getBooks],
  (filteredIds, authors, books) => (
    filteredIds.map(id => ({
      ...authors.byIds[id],
      books: authors.byIds[id].books.map(id => books.byIds[id])
    }))
  ))

// Combined Reducer
const reducers = combineReducers({
  books: booksReducer,
  authors: authorsReducer
})

// Store
const store = createStore(reducers)

const render = () => {
  ReactDOM.render(<Provider store={store}>
    <App />
  </Provider>, document.getElementById('root'))
}

render()

<div id="root"></div>

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react/15.1.0/react.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react/15.1.0/react-dom.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/babel-core/5.8.24/browser.js"></script>
<script src="https://npmcdn.com/reselect@3.0.1/dist/reselect.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/redux/3.3.1/redux.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react-redux/4.4.6/react-redux.min.js"></script>

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JSFiddle.

Answer 1

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books: [1]
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const authors = [{
  id: 1,
  name: 'Jordan Enev',
  books: [1]
}];

const authors = [{
  id: 1,
  name: 'Jordan Enev',
  books: [{
      id: 1,
      name: 'Book 1',
      category: 'Programming',
      authorId: 1
  }]
}];

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, , mapStateToProps:

const mapStateToProps = state => ({
  books: getBooksSelector(state),
  authors: getAuthorsSelector(state),
  healthAuthors: getHealthAuthorsSelector(state),
  healthAuthorsWithBooks: getHealthAuthorsWithBooksSelector(state)
});

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const mapStateToProps = state => ({
  books: getBooksSelector(state),
  authors: getAuthors(state),
});

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const { books, authors } = this.props;

const healthBooksByAuthor = books.reduce((indexedBooks, book) => {
   if (book.category === 'Health') {
      if (!(book.authorId in indexedBooks)) {
         indexedBooks[book.authorId] = [];
      }
      indexedBooks[book.authorId].push(book);
   }
   return indexedBooks;
}, {});

?

const healthyAuthorIds = Object.keys(healthBooksByAuthor);

...
healthyAuthorIds.map(authorId => {
    const author = authors.byIds[authorId];

    return (<li>{ author.name }
       <ul>
         { healthBooksByAuthor[authorId].map(book => <li>{ book.name }</li> }
       </ul>
    </li>);
})
...

..

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const indexList = fieldsBy => list => {
 // so we don't have to create property keys inside the loop
  const indexedBase = fieldsBy.reduce((obj, field) => {
    obj[field] = {};
    return obj;
  }, {});

  return list.reduce(
    (indexedData, item) => {
      fieldsBy.forEach((field) => {
        const value = item[field];

        if (!(value in indexedData[field])) {
          indexedData[field][value] = [];
        }

        indexedData[field][value].push(item);
      });

      return indexedData;
    },
    indexedBase,
  );
};

. , . ?

const getBooksIndexed = createSelector([getBooksSelector], indexList(['category', 'authorId']));
const getBooksIndexedInCategory = category => createSelector([getBooksIndexed],
    booksIndexedBy => {
        return indexList(['authorId'])(booksIndexedBy.category[category])
    });
    // you can actually abstract this even more!

...
later that day
...

const mapStateToProps = state => ({
  booksIndexedBy: getBooksIndexedInCategory('Health')(state),
  authors: getAuthors(state),
});

...
const { booksIndexedBy, authors } = this.props;
const healthyAuthorIds = Object.keys(booksIndexedBy.authorId);

healthyAuthorIds.map(authorId => {
    const author = authors.byIds[authorId];

    return (<li>{ author.name }
       <ul>
         { healthBooksByAuthor[authorId].map(book => <li>{ book.name }</li> }
       </ul>
    </li>);
})
...

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Answer 2

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Answer 3

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// Handing many-to-many case.
const getBooks = createSelector({ Book } => {
  return Books.all().toModelArray()
   .map( book => ({ 
     book: book.ref,
     authors: book.authors.toRefArray()
   })
})

// Handling Deep filtration.
// Keep in mind here you can pass parameters, instead of hardcoding the filtration criteria.
const getFilteredBooks = createSelector({ Book } => {
  return Books.all().toModelArray()
   .filter( book => {
     const authors = book.authors.toModelArray()
     const hasAuthorInCountry = authors.filter(a => a.country.name === 'Bulgaria').length

     return book.category.type === 'Health' && hasAuthorInCountry
   })
   .map( book => ({ 
     book: book.ref,
     authors: book.authors.toRefArray()
   })
})

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