# normalizr

## Install

Install from the NPM repository using yarn or npm:

```shell
yarn add normalizr
```

```shell
npm install normalizr
```

## Motivation

Many APIs, public or not, return JSON data that has deeply nested objects. Using data in this kind of structure is often [very difficult](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/reactjs/jbh50-GJxpg) for JavaScript applications, especially those using [Flux](http://facebook.github.io/flux/) or [Redux](http://redux.js.org/).

## Solution

Normalizr is a small, but powerful utility for taking JSON with a schema definition and returning nested entities with their IDs, gathered in dictionaries.

## Documentation

* [Introduction](https://github.com/bgoonz/Learning-Redux/blob/master/docs/introduction.md)
  * [Build Files](https://github.com/bgoonz/Learning-Redux/blob/master/docs/introduction.md#build-files)
* [Quick Start](https://github.com/bgoonz/Learning-Redux/blob/master/docs/quickstart.md)
* [API](https://github.com/bgoonz/Learning-Redux/blob/master/docs/api.md)
  * [normalize](https://github.com/bgoonz/Learning-Redux/blob/master/docs/api.md#normalizedata-schema)
  * [denormalize](https://github.com/bgoonz/Learning-Redux/blob/master/docs/api.md#denormalizeinput-schema-entities)
  * [schema](https://github.com/bgoonz/Learning-Redux/blob/master/docs/api.md#schema)
* [Using with JSONAPI](https://github.com/bgoonz/Learning-Redux/blob/master/docs/jsonapi.md)

## Examples

* [Normalizing GitHub Issues](https://github.com/bgoonz/Learning-Redux/blob/master/examples/github/README.md)
* [Relational Data](https://github.com/bgoonz/Learning-Redux/blob/master/examples/relationships/README.md)
* [Interactive Redux](https://github.com/bgoonz/Learning-Redux/blob/master/examples/redux/README.md)

## Quick Start

Consider a typical blog post. The API response for a single post might look something like this:

```json
{
  "id": "123",
  "author": {
    "id": "1",
    "name": "Paul"
  },
  "title": "My awesome blog post",
  "comments": [
    {
      "id": "324",
      "commenter": {
        "id": "2",
        "name": "Nicole"
      }
    }
  ]
}
```

We have two nested entity types within our `article`: `users` and `comments`. Using various `schema`, we can normalize all three entity types down:

```js
import { normalize, schema } from 'normalizr';

// Define a users schema
const user = new schema.Entity('users');

// Define your comments schema
const comment = new schema.Entity('comments', {
  commenter: user
});

// Define your article
const article = new schema.Entity('articles', {
  author: user,
  comments: [comment]
});

const normalizedData = normalize(originalData, article);
```

Now, `normalizedData` will be:

```js
{
  result: "123",
  entities: {
    "articles": {
      "123": {
        id: "123",
        author: "1",
        title: "My awesome blog post",
        comments: [ "324" ]
      }
    },
    "users": {
      "1": { "id": "1", "name": "Paul" },
      "2": { "id": "2", "name": "Nicole" }
    },
    "comments": {
      "324": { id: "324", "commenter": "2" }
    }
  }
}
```

## Dependencies

None.

## Credits

Normalizr was originally created by [Dan Abramov](http://github.com/gaearon) and inspired by a conversation with [Jing Chen](https://twitter.com/jingc). Since v3, it was completely rewritten and maintained by [Paul Armstrong](https://twitter.com/paularmstrong). It has also received much help, enthusiasm, and contributions from [community members](https://github.com/paularmstrong/normalizr/graphs/contributors).