swr-models

SWR toolkit for abstracting API data models as React state objects.

Introduction

When working with an HTTP CRUD API, you typically use it to store and retrieve data models from a database. Now, imagine you have a frontend application that interacts with this API. In this application, you can abstract the API calls to such an extent that the data models behave like native React state objects. This abstraction allows developers to work seamlessly with data models in the frontend, simplifying data manipulation and improving the overall development experience.

Quick Start

To get started, you need to install the package:

npm install swr-models --save-dev

Let's say you have an CRUD API that provides articles, and you have this API accessible from the frontend application on /api/models/articles/<id> (for example with rewrite). You can define a model endpoint as follows:

// endpoints/Articles.ts

import { SWRModelEndpoint } from "swr-models";

export const Articles = new SWRModelEndpoint({
    key: "/api/models/articles",
});

Create a typings file to define the shape of the article object returned by the API:

// types/Article.d.ts

export interface ArticleModel {
    id: number;
    title: string;
    content: string;
}

Now, you can use the Articles object to interact with the API from the React components:

// components/Article.tsx

import { FC } from "react";
import { useModel } from "swr-models";

import { Articles } from "../endpoints/Articles"; 
import { ArticleModel } from "../types/Article";

type ArticleProps = {
    id: number;
};

export const Article: FC<ArticleProps> = ({id}) => {
    const { model } = useModel<ArticleModel>(Articles, { id });
    //...
};

The useModel hook provides you with a set of functions to work with the model object:

const {
    model,
    set,
    reset,
    original,
    lock,
    unlock,
    commit
} = useModel<ArticleModel>(Articles, { id });

• model is the current state of the model object.
• set allows you to update the model object.
• reset resets the model object to its original state.
• original is the original state of the model object.
• lock locks the model object, preventing updates.
• unlock unlocks the model object, allowing updates.
• commit commits the changes to the API.

You can use these functions to interact with the model object in a way that feels like working with a native React state object.

If you for example have a Popup component with a form to edit the article inside the Article.tsx component, you can use the lock and unlock functions to prevent any unwanted updates from API while the form is open, bind set to Input fields and appropriately update the model state, and commit the changes when the form is saved or reset the changes when the form is closed.