Basics

Reducers frequently reason about the action.type, very often using a switch statement to drive conditional logic:

export default function widget(widget=null, action) {

  switch (action.type) {

    case 'widget.edit':
      return action.widget;

    case 'widget.edit.close':
      return null;

    default:
      return widget;
  }
}

The reducerHash() function (the most common composition reducer) provides a more elegant solution, eliminating the switch statement altogether. It creates a higher-order reducer, by combining a set of sub-reducer functions that are indexed by the standard action.type.

The following snippet, is equivalent to the one above:

import { reducerHash } from 'astx-redux-util';

export default reducerHash({
  "widget.edit":       (widget, action) => action.widget,
  "widget.edit.close": (widget, action) => null,
}, null); // initialState

Not only is the conditional logic better encapsulated, but the default pass-through logic is automatically applied (using the identity function), passing through the original state when no action.type is acted on.

Please Note A null InitialState value is applied in this reduction, which provides the fall-back state value during the state initialization boot-strap process.

SideBar Because reducerHash() is so central to the rudimentary aspects of reduction, it is common to provide a value-added Logging Extension, with the ability to correlate logging levels to state changes (providing a means to filter logs at a high level with minimal output).