Local State Management
Relay can be used to read and write local data, and act as a single source of truth for all data in your client application. The Relay Compiler fully supports client-side extensions of the schema, which allows you to define local fields and types.
Table of Contents:
Extending the server schema​
To extend the server schema, create a new .graphql
file inside your --src
directory.
Let's call it ./src/clientSchema.graphql
.
This schema describes what local data can be queried on the client. It can even be used to extend an existing server schema.
For example, we can create a new type called Note
:
type Note {
ID: ID!
title: String
body: String
}
And then extend the server schema type User
, with a list of Note
, called notes
.
extend type User {
notes: [Note]
}
Querying local state​
Accessing local data is no different from querying your GraphQL server, although you are required to include atleast one server field in the query.
The field can be from the server schema, or it can be schema agnostic, like an introspection field (i.e. __typename
).
Here, we use a QueryRenderer to get the current User
via the viewer
field, along with their id, name and the local list of notes.
// Example.js
import React from 'react';
import { QueryRenderer, graphql } from 'react-relay';
const renderQuery = ({error, props}) => {
if (error) {
return <div>{error.message}</div>;
} else if (props) {
return (
<div>
{props.viewer.notes.map(({id, title, body}) => (
<div key={id}>
{title}
</div>
<div key={id}>
{body}
</div>
))}
</div>
);
}
return <div>Loading</div>;
}
const Example = (props) => {
return (
<QueryRenderer
render={renderQuery}
environment={environment}
query={graphql`
query ExampleQuery {
viewer {
id
name
notes {
id
title
body
}
}
}
`}
/>
);
}
Mutating local state​
All local data lives in the Relay Store.
Updating local state can be done with any updater
function.
The commitLocalUpdate
function is especially ideal for this, because writes to local state are usually executed outside of a mutation.
To build upon the previous example, let's try creating, updating and deleting a Note
from the list of notes
on User
.
Create​
import {commitLocalUpdate} from 'react-relay';
let tempID = 0;
function createUserNote() {
commitLocalUpdate(environment, store => {
const user = store.getRoot().getLinkedRecord('viewer');
const userNoteRecords = user.getLinkedRecords('notes') || [];
// Create a unique ID.
const dataID = `client:Note:${tempID++}`;
//Create a new note record.
const newNoteRecord = store.create(dataID, 'Note');
// Add the record to the user's list of notes.
user.setLinkedRecords([...userNoteRecords, newNoteRecord], 'notes');
});
}
Note that since this record will be rendered by the ExampleQuery
in our QueryRenderer
, the QueryRenderer will automatically retain this data so it isn't garbage collected.
If no component is rendering the local data and you want to manually retain it, you can do so by calling environment.retain()
:
// Tell Relay to retain the record so it isn't garbage collected
environment.retain({
dataID,
variables: {},
node: { selections: [] }
});
Update​
import {commitLocalUpdate} from 'react-relay';
function updateUserNote(dataID, body, title) {
commitLocalUpdate(environment, store => {
const note = store.get(dataID);
note.setValue(body, 'body');
note.setValue(title, 'title')
});
}
Delete​
import {commitLocalUpdate} from 'react-relay';
function deleteUserNote(dataID) {
commitLocalUpdate(environment, store => {
const user = store.getRoot().getLinkedRecord('viewer');
const userNoteRecords = user.getLinkedRecords('notes');
// Remove the note from the list of user notes.
const newUserNoteRecords = userNoteRecords.filter(x => x.getDataID() !== dataID);
// Delete the note from the store.
store.delete(dataID);
// Set the new list of notes.
user.setLinkedRecords(newUserNoteRecords, 'notes');
});
}
Initial local state​
All new client-side schema fields default to undefined
value. Often however, you will want to set the initial state before querying local data.
You can use an updater function via commitLocalUpdate
to prime local state.
import {commitLocalUpdate} from 'react-relay';
commitLocalUpdate(environment, store => {
const user = store.getRoot().getLinkedRecord('viewer');
// initialize user notes to an empty array.
user.setLinkedRecords([], 'notes');
});