Provider Pattern
In some cases, we want to make available data to many (if not all)
components in an application. Although we can pass data to components using props, this can be difficult to do if almost all components in your application need access to the value of the props.
We often end up with something called prop drilling, which is the case when we pass props far down the component tree. Refactoring the code that relies on the props becomes almost impossible, and knowing where certain data comes from is difficult.
Let’s say that we have one App component that contains certain data. Far down the component tree, we have a ListItem, Header and Text component that all need this data. In order to get this data to these components, we’d have to pass it through multiple layers of components.
In our codebase, that would look something like the following:
function App() {
const data = { ... }
return (
<div>
<SideBar data={data} />
<Content data={data} />
</div>
)
}
const SideBar = ({ data }) => <List data={data} />
const List = ({ data }) => <ListItem data={data} />
const ListItem = ({ data }) => <span>{data.listItem}</span>
const Content = ({ data }) => (
<div>
<Header data={data} />
<Block data={data} />
</div>
)
const Header = ({ data }) => <div>{data.title}</div>
const Block = ({ data }) => <Text data={data} />
const Text = ({ data }) => <h1>{data.text}</h1>Passing props down this way can get quite messy. If we want to rename the data prop in the future, we’d have to rename it in all components. The bigger your application gets, the trickier prop drilling can be.
It would be optimal if we could skip all the layers of components that don’t need to use this data. We need to have something that gives the components that need access to the value of data direct access to it, without relying on prop drilling.
This is where the Provider Pattern can help us out! With the
Provider Pattern, we can make data available to multiple components. Rather than passing that data down each layer through props, we can wrap all components in a Provider. A Provider is a higher order component provided to us by the Context object. We can create a Context object, using the createContext method that React provides for us.
The Provider receives a value prop, which contains the data that we want to pass down. All components that are wrapped within this provider have access to the value of the value prop.
const DataContext = React.createContext()
function App() {
const data = { ... }
return (
<div>
<DataContext.Provider value={data}>
<SideBar />
<Content />
</DataContext.Provider>
</div>
)
}We no longer have to manually pass down the data prop to each
component! So, how can the ListItem, Header and Text component access the value of data?
Each component can get access to the data, by using the useContext hook. This hook receives the context that data has a reference with, DataContext in this case. The useContext hook lets us read and write data to the context object.
const DataContext = React.createContext();
function App() {
const data = { ... }
return (
<div>
<SideBar />
<Content />
</div>
)
}
const SideBar = () => <List />
const List = () => <ListItem />
const Content = () => <div><Header /><Block /></div>
function ListItem() {
const { data } = React.useContext(DataContext);
return <span>{data.listItem}</span>;
}
function Text() {
const { data } = React.useContext(DataContext);
return <h1>{data.text}</h1>;
}
function Header() {
const { data } = React.useContext(DataContext);
return <div>{data.title}</div>;
}The components that aren’t using the data value won’t have to deal with data at all. We no longer have to worry about passing props down several levels through components that don’t need the value of the props, which makes refactoring a lot easier.
The Provider pattern is very useful for sharing global data. A common usecase for the provider pattern is sharing a theme UI state with many components.
Say we have a simple app that shows a list.
We want the user to be able to switch between lightmode and darkmode, by toggling the switch. When the user switches from dark- to lightmode and vice versa, the background color and text color should change! Instead of passing the current theme value down to each component, we can wrap the components in a ThemeProvider, and pass the current theme colors to the provider.
export const ThemeContext = React.createContext();
const themes = {
light: {
background: "#fff",
color: "#000",
},
dark: {
background: "#171717",
color: "#fff",
},
};
export default function App() {
const [theme, setTheme] = useState("dark");
function toggleTheme() {
setTheme(theme === "light" ? "dark" : "light");
}
const providerValue = {
theme: themes[theme],
toggleTheme,
};
return (
<div className={`App theme-${theme}`}>
<ThemeContext.Provider value={providerValue}>
<Toggle />
<List />
</ThemeContext.Provider>
</div>
);
}Since the Toggle and List components are both wrapped within the ThemeContext provider, we have access to the values theme and
toggleTheme that are passed as a value to the provider.
Within the Toggle component, we can use the toggleTheme function to update the theme accordingly.
import React, { useContext } from "react";
import { ThemeContext } from "./App";
export default function Toggle() {
const theme = useContext(ThemeContext);
return (
<label className="switch">
<input type="checkbox" onClick={theme.toggleTheme} />
<span className="slider round" />
</label>
);
}The List component itself doesn’t care about the current value of the theme. However, the ListItem components do! We can use the theme context directly within the ListItem.
import React, { useContext } from "react";
import { ThemeContext } from "./App";
export default function TextBox() {
const theme = useContext(ThemeContext);
return <li style={theme.theme}>...</li>;
}Perfect! We didn’t have to pass down any data to components that didn’t care about the current value of the theme.
Hooks
We can create a hook to provide context to components. Instead of having to import useContext and the Context in each component, we can use a hook that returns the context we need.
function useThemeContext() {
const theme = useContext(ThemeContext);
return theme;
}To make sure that it’s a valid theme, let’s throw an error if
useContext(ThemeContext) returns a falsy value.
function useThemeContext() {
const theme = useContext(ThemeContext);
if (!theme) {
throw new Error("useThemeContext must be used within ThemeProvider");
}
return theme;
}Instead of wrapping the components directly with the ThemeContext.Provider component, we can create a HOC that wraps the component to provide its values. This way, we can separate the context logic from the rendering components, which improves the reusability of the provider.
function ThemeProvider({ children }) {
const [theme, setTheme] = useState("dark");
function toggleTheme() {
setTheme(theme === "light" ? "dark" : "light");
}
const providerValue = {
theme: themes[theme],
toggleTheme,
};
return (
<ThemeContext.Provider value={providerValue}>
{children}
</ThemeContext.Provider>
);
}
export default function App() {
return (
<div className={`App theme-${theme}`}>
<ThemeProvider>
<Toggle />
<List />
</ThemeProvider>
</div>
);
}Each component that needs to have access to the ThemeContext, can now simply use the useThemeContext hook.
export default function TextBox() {
const theme = useThemeContext();
return <li style={theme.theme}>...</li>;
}By creating hooks for the different contexts, it’s easy to separate the providers’s logic from the components that render the data.
Case Study
Some libraries provide built-in providers, which values we can use in the consuming components. A good example of this, is styled-components.
No experience with styled-components is needed to understand this example.
The styled-components library provides a ThemeProvider for us. Each styled component will have access to the value of this provider! Instead of creating a context API ourselves, we can use the one that’s been provided to us!
Let’s use the same List example, and wrap the components in the
ThemeProvider imported from the styled-component library.
import { ThemeProvider } from "styled-components";
export default function App() {
const [theme, setTheme] = useState("dark");
function toggleTheme() {
setTheme(theme === "light" ? "dark" : "light");
}
return (
<div className={`App theme-${theme}`}>
<ThemeProvider theme={themes[theme]}>
<Toggle toggleTheme={toggleTheme} />
<List />
</ThemeProvider>
</div>
);
}Instead of passing an inline style prop to the ListItem component, we’ll make it a styled.li component. Since it’s a styled component, we can access the value of theme!
import styled from "styled-components";
export default function ListItem() {
return (
<Li>
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod
tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim
veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea
commodo consequat.
</Li>
);
}
const Li = styled.li`
${({ theme }) => `
background-color: ${theme.backgroundColor};
color: ${theme.color};
`}
`;Awesome, we can now easily apply styles to all our styled components with the ThemeProvider!
Tradeoffs
Pros
The Provider pattern/Context API makes it possible to pass data to many components, without having to manually pass it through each component layer.
It reduces the risk of accidentally introducing bugs when refactoring code. Previously, if we later on wanted to rename a prop, we had to rename this prop throughout the entire application where this value was used.
We no longer have to deal with prop-drilling, which could be seen as an anti-pattern. Previously, it could be difficult to understand the dataflow of the application, as it wasn’t always clear where certain prop values originated. With the Provider pattern, we no longer have to unnecessarily pass props to component that don’t care about this data.
Keeping some sort of global state is made easy with the Provider pattern, as we can give components access to this global state.
Cons
In some cases, overusing the Provider pattern can result in performance issues. All components that consume the context re-render on each state change.
Let’s look at an example. We have a simple counter which value increases every time we click on the Increment button in the Button component. We also have a Reset button in the Reset component, which resets the count back to 0.
When you click on Increment, however, you can see that it’s not just the count that re-renders. The date in the Reset component re-renders as well!
The Reset component also re-rendered since it consumed the
useCountContext. In smaller applications, this won’t matter too much. In larger applications, passing a frequently updated value to many components can affect the performance negatively.
To make sure that components aren’t consuming providers that contain unnecessary values which may update, you can create several providers for each separate usecase.