CLAFluxDispatcher 0.0.1

You want to add pod 'CLAFluxDispatcher', '~> 0.0' similar to the following to your Podfile:

target 'MyApp' do
  pod 'CLAFluxDispatcher', '~> 0.0'
end

Then run a pod install inside your terminal, or from CocoaPods.app.

Alternatively to give it a test run, run the command:

pod try CLAFluxDispatcher

CLAFluxDispatcher 0.0.1

By
Clay Allsopp
clayallsopp

A port of Facebook's Flux Dispatcher to Objective-C

Installation

Via CocoaPods:

pod 'CLAFluxDispatcher'

Adding the files into your source tree will also work, there are no dependencies.

Usage

This is adapted from the Flux documentation

CLAFluxDispatcher is used to broadcast payloads to registered callbacks. This is different from generic pub-sub systems in two ways:

Callbacks are not subscribed to particular events. Every payload is dispatched to every registered callback.
Callbacks can be deferred in whole or part until other callbacks have been executed.

For example, consider this hypothetical flight destination form, which selects a default city when a country is selected:

CLAFluxDispatcher *flightDispatcher = [CLAFluxDispatcher new];

// Keeps track of which country is selected
NSMutableDictionary *countryStore = @{@"country": [NSNull null]};

// Keeps track of which city is selected
NSMutableDictionary *cityStore = @{@"city": [NSNull null]};

// Keeps track of the base flight price of the selected city
NSMutableDictionary *flightPriceStore = @{@"price": [NSNull null]};

When a user changes the selected city, we dispatch the payload:

[flightDispatcher dispatch:@{
  @"actionType": @"city-update",
  @"selectedCity": @"paris"
}];

This payload is digested by cityStore:

[flightDispatcher registerCallback:^(NSDictionary *payload) {
  if ([payload[@"actionType"] isEqualToString:@"city-update"]) {
    cityStore[@"city"] = payload[@"selectedCity"];
  }
}]

When the user selects a country, we dispatch the payload:

[flightDispatcher dispatch:@{
  @"actionType": @"country-update",
  @"selectedCountry": @"australia"
}];

This payload is digested by both stores:

countryStore[@"dispatchToken"] = [flightDispatcher registerCallback:^(NSDictionary *payload) {
  if ([payload[@"actionType"] isEqualToString:@"country-update"]) {
    countryStore[@"country"] = payload[@"selectedCountry"];
  }
}];

When the callback to update countryStore is registered, we save a reference to the returned token. Using this token with waitFor(), we can guarantee that countryStore is updated before the callback that updates cityStore needs to query its data.

cityStore[@"dispatchToken"] = [flightDispatcher registerCallback:^(NSDictionary *payload) {
  if ([payload[@"actionType"] isEqualToString:@"country-update"]) {
    // `countryStore[@"country"]` may not be updated.
    [flightDispatcher waitFor:@[countryStore[@"dispatchToken"]]];
    // `countryStore[@"country"]` is now guaranteed to be updated.

    // Select the default city for the new country
    cityStore[@"city"] = getDefaultCityForCountry(countryStore[@"country"]);
  }
}];

The usage of waitFor() can be chained, for example:

flightPriceStore[@"dispatchToken"] =
  [flightDispatcher registerCallback:^(NSDictionary *payload) {
    if ([payload[@"actionType"] isEqualToString: @"country-update"]) {
      [flightDispatcher waitFor: @[cityStore[@"dispatchToken"]]];
      flightPriceStore[@"price"] =
        getFlightPriceStore(countryStore[@"country"], cityStore[@"city"]);
    }
    else if ([payload[@"actionType"] isEqualToString: @"city-update"]) {
      flightPriceStore[@"price"] =
        getFlightPriceStore(countryStore[@"country"], cityStore[@"city"]);
    }
  }];

When you're cleaning up your objects, don't forget to unregister your dangling callbacks with your saved token:

[flightDispatcher unregisterCallback: self.flightPriceStore[@"dispatchToken"]];

The country-update payload will be guaranteed to invoke the stores' registered callbacks in order: countryStore, cityStore, then flightPriceStore.

API

@interface CLAFluxDispatcher : NSObject

- (void)dispatch:(NSDictionary *)payload;
- (void)waitFor:(NSArray *)dispatchTokens;

- (id)registerCallback:(CLAFluxDispatcherCallback)callback;
- (void)unregisterCallback:(id)dispatchToken;

- (BOOL)isDispatching;

@end

License

This is MIT licensed