connect()

Overview

The connect() function connects a React component to a Redux store.

It provides its connected component with the pieces of the data it needs from the store, and the functions it can use to dispatch actions to the store.

It does not modify the component class passed to it; instead, it returns a new, connected component class that wraps the component you passed in.

function connect(mapStateToProps?, mapDispatchToProps?, mergeProps?, options?)

The mapStateToProps and mapDispatchToProps deals with your Redux store’s state and dispatch, respectively. state and dispatch will be supplied to your mapStateToProps or mapDispatchToProps functions as the first argument.

The returns of mapStateToProps and mapDispatchToProps are referred to internally as stateProps and dispatchProps, respectively. They will be supplied to mergeProps, if defined, as the first and the second argument, where the third argument will be ownProps. The combined result, commonly referred to as mergedProps, will then be supplied to your connected component.

connect() Parameters

connect accepts four different parameters, all optional. By convention, they are called:

1. mapStateToProps?: Function

2. mapDispatchToProps?: Function | Object

3. mergeProps?: Function

4. options?: Object

mapStateToProps?: (state, ownProps?) => Object

If a mapStateToProps function is specified, the new wrapper component will subscribe to Redux store updates. This means that any time the store is updated, mapStateToProps will be called. The results of mapStateToProps must be a plain object, which will be merged into the wrapped component’s props. If you don't want to subscribe to store updates, pass null or undefined in place of mapStateToProps.

Parameters

1. state: Object

2. ownProps?: Object

A mapStateToProps function takes a maximum of two parameters. The number of declared function parameters (a.k.a. arity) affects when it will be called. This also determines whether the function will receive ownProps. See notes here.

state

If your mapStateToProps function is declared as taking one parameter, it will be called whenever the store state changes, and given the store state as the only parameter.

const mapStateToProps = (state) => ({ todos: state.todos })

ownProps

If your mapStateToProps function is declared as taking two parameters, it will be called whenever the store state changes or when the wrapper component receives new props (based on shallow equality comparisons). It will be given the store state as the first parameter, and the wrapper component's props as the second parameter.

The second parameter is normally referred to as ownProps by convention.

const mapStateToProps = (state, ownProps) => ({
  todo: state.todos[ownProps.id],
})

Returns

Your mapStateToProps functions are expected to return an object. This object, normally referred to as stateProps, will be merged as props to your connected component. If you define mergeProps, it will be supplied as the first parameter to mergeProps.

The return of the mapStateToProps determine whether the connected component will re-render (details here).

For more details on recommended usage of mapStateToProps, please refer to our guide on using mapStateToProps.

You may define mapStateToProps and mapDispatchToProps as a factory function, i.e., you return a function instead of an object. In this case your returned function will be treated as the real mapStateToProps or mapDispatchToProps, and be called in subsequent calls. You may see notes on Factory Functions or our guide on performance optimizations.

mapDispatchToProps?: Object | (dispatch, ownProps?) => Object

Conventionally called mapDispatchToProps, this second parameter to connect() may either be an object, a function, or not supplied.

Your component will receive dispatch by default, i.e., when you do not supply a second parameter to connect():

// do not pass `mapDispatchToProps`
connect()(MyComponent)
connect(mapState)(MyComponent)
connect(mapState, null, mergeProps, options)(MyComponent)

If you define a mapDispatchToProps as a function, it will be called with a maximum of two parameters.

Parameters

1. dispatch: Function

2. ownProps?: Object

dispatch

If your mapDispatchToProps is declared as a function taking one parameter, it will be given the dispatch of your store.

const mapDispatchToProps = (dispatch) => {
  return {
    // dispatching plain actions
    increment: () => dispatch({ type: 'INCREMENT' }),
    decrement: () => dispatch({ type: 'DECREMENT' }),
    reset: () => dispatch({ type: 'RESET' }),
  }
}

ownProps

If your mapDispatchToProps function is declared as taking two parameters, it will be called with dispatch as the first parameter and the props passed to the wrapper component as the second parameter, and will be re-invoked whenever the connected component receives new props.

The second parameter is normally referred to as ownProps by convention.

// binds on component re-rendering
;<button onClick={() => this.props.toggleTodo(this.props.todoId)} />

// binds on `props` change
const mapDispatchToProps = (dispatch, ownProps) => {
  toggleTodo: () => dispatch(toggleTodo(ownProps.todoId))
}

The number of declared function parameters of mapDispatchToProps determines whether they receive ownProps. See notes here.

Returns

Your mapDispatchToProps functions are expected to return an object. Each fields of the object should be a function, calling which is expected to dispatch an action to the store.

The return of your mapDispatchToProps functions are regarded as dispatchProps. It will be merged as props to your connected component. If you define mergeProps, it will be supplied as the second parameter to mergeProps.

const createMyAction = () => ({ type: 'MY_ACTION' })
const mapDispatchToProps = (dispatch, ownProps) => {
  const boundActions = bindActionCreators({ createMyAction }, dispatch)
  return {
    dispatchPlainObject: () => dispatch({ type: 'MY_ACTION' }),
    dispatchActionCreatedByActionCreator: () => dispatch(createMyAction()),
    ...boundActions,
    // you may return dispatch here
    dispatch,
  }
}

For more details on recommended usage, please refer to our guide on using mapDispatchToProps.

You may define mapStateToProps and mapDispatchToProps as a factory function, i.e., you return a function instead of an object. In this case your returned function will be treated as the real mapStateToProps or mapDispatchToProps, and be called in subsequent calls. You may see notes on Factory Functions or our guide on performance optimizations.

Object Shorthand Form

mapDispatchToProps may be an object where each field is an action creator.

import { addTodo, deleteTodo, toggleTodo } from './actionCreators'

const mapDispatchToProps = {
  addTodo,
  deleteTodo,
  toggleTodo,
}

export default connect(null, mapDispatchToProps)(TodoApp)

In this case, React-Redux binds the dispatch of your store to each of the action creators using bindActionCreators. The result will be regarded as dispatchProps, which will be either directly merged to your connected components, or supplied to mergeProps as the second argument.

// internally, React-Redux calls bindActionCreators
// to bind the action creators to the dispatch of your store
bindActionCreators(mapDispatchToProps, dispatch)

We also have a section in our mapDispatchToProps guide on the usage of object shorthand form here.

mergeProps?: (stateProps, dispatchProps, ownProps) => Object

If specified, defines how the final props for your own wrapped component are determined. If you do not provide mergeProps, your wrapped component receives { ...ownProps, ...stateProps, ...dispatchProps } by default.

Parameters

mergeProps should be specified with maximum of three parameters. They are the result of mapStateToProps(), mapDispatchToProps(), and the wrapper component's props, respectively:

1. stateProps

2. dispatchProps

3. ownProps

The fields in the plain object you return from it will be used as the props for the wrapped component. You may specify this function to select a slice of the state based on props, or to bind action creators to a particular variable from props.

Returns

The return value of mergeProps is referred to as mergedProps and the fields will be used as the props for the wrapped component.

options?: Object

{
  context?: Object,
  pure?: boolean,
  areStatesEqual?: Function,
  areOwnPropsEqual?: Function,
  areStatePropsEqual?: Function,
  areMergedPropsEqual?: Function,
  forwardRef?: boolean,
}

context: Object

Note: This parameter is supported in >= v6.0 only

React-Redux v6 allows you to supply a custom context instance to be used by React-Redux. You need to pass the instance of your context to both <Provider /> and your connected component. You may pass the context to your connected component either by passing it here as a field of option, or as a prop to your connected component in rendering.

// const MyContext = React.createContext();
connect(mapStateToProps, mapDispatchToProps, null, { context: MyContext })(
  MyComponent
)

pure: boolean

• default value: true

Assumes that the wrapped component is a “pure” component and does not rely on any input or state other than its props and the selected Redux store’s state.

When options.pure is true, connect performs several equality checks that are used to avoid unnecessary calls to mapStateToProps, mapDispatchToProps, mergeProps, and ultimately to render. These include areStatesEqual, areOwnPropsEqual, areStatePropsEqual, and areMergedPropsEqual. While the defaults are probably appropriate 99% of the time, you may wish to override them with custom implementations for performance or other reasons.

We provide a few examples in the following sections.

areStatesEqual: (next: Object, prev: Object) => boolean

• default value: strictEqual: (next, prev) => prev === next

When pure, compares incoming store state to its previous value.

Example 1

const areStatesEqual = (next, prev) =>
  prev.entities.todos === next.entities.todos

You may wish to override areStatesEqual if your mapStateToProps function is computationally expensive and is also only concerned with a small slice of your state. The example above will effectively ignore state changes for everything but that slice of state.

Example 2

If you have impure reducers that mutate your store state, you may wish to override areStatesEqual to always return false:

const areStatesEqual = () => false

This would likely impact the other equality checks as well, depending on your mapStateToProps function.

areOwnPropsEqual: (next: Object, prev: Object) => boolean

• default value: shallowEqual: (objA, objB) => boolean ( returns true when each field of the objects is equal )

When pure, compares incoming props to its previous value.

You may wish to override areOwnPropsEqual as a way to whitelist incoming props. You'd also have to implement mapStateToProps, mapDispatchToProps and mergeProps to also whitelist props. (It may be simpler to achieve this other ways, for example by using recompose's mapProps.)

areStatePropsEqual: (next: Object, prev: Object) => boolean

• type: function

• default value: shallowEqual

When pure, compares the result of mapStateToProps to its previous value.

areMergedPropsEqual: (next: Object, prev: Object) => boolean

• default value: shallowEqual

When pure, compares the result of mergeProps to its previous value.

You may wish to override areStatePropsEqual to use strictEqual if your mapStateToProps uses a memoized selector that will only return a new object if a relevant prop has changed. This would be a very slight performance improvement, since would avoid extra equality checks on individual props each time mapStateToProps is called.

You may wish to override areMergedPropsEqual to implement a deepEqual if your selectors produce complex props. ex: nested objects, new arrays, etc. (The deep equal check may be faster than just re-rendering.)

forwardRef: boolean

Note: This parameter is supported in >= v6.0 only

If {forwardRef : true} has been passed to connect, adding a ref to the connected wrapper component will actually return the instance of the wrapped component.

connect() Returns

The return of connect() is a wrapper function that takes your component and returns a wrapper component with the additional props it injects.

import { login, logout } from './actionCreators'

const mapState = (state) => state.user
const mapDispatch = { login, logout }

// first call: returns a hoc that you can use to wrap any component
const connectUser = connect(mapState, mapDispatch)

// second call: returns the wrapper component with mergedProps
// you may use the hoc to enable different components to get the same behavior
const ConnectedUserLogin = connectUser(Login)
const ConnectedUserProfile = connectUser(Profile)

In most cases, the wrapper function will be called right away, without being saved in a temporary variable:

import { login, logout } from './actionCreators'

const mapState = (state) => state.user
const mapDispatch = { login, logout }

// call connect to generate the wrapper function, and immediately call
// the wrapper function to generate the final wrapper component.

export default connect(mapState, mapDispatch)(Login)

Example Usage

Because connect is so flexible, it may help to see some additional examples of how it can be called:

• Inject just dispatch and don't listen to store

export default connect()(TodoApp)

• Inject all action creators (addTodo, completeTodo, ...) without subscribing to the store

import * as actionCreators from './actionCreators'

export default connect(null, actionCreators)(TodoApp)

• Inject dispatch and every field in the global state

Don’t do this! It kills any performance optimizations because TodoApp will rerender after every state change. It’s better to have more granular connect() on several components in your view hierarchy that each only listen to a relevant slice of the state.

// don't do this!
export default connect((state) => state)(TodoApp)

• Inject dispatch and todos

function mapStateToProps(state) {
  return { todos: state.todos }
}

export default connect(mapStateToProps)(TodoApp)

• Inject todos and all action creators

import * as actionCreators from './actionCreators'

function mapStateToProps(state) {
  return { todos: state.todos }
}

export default connect(mapStateToProps, actionCreators)(TodoApp)

• Inject todos and all action creators (addTodo, completeTodo, ...) as actions

import * as actionCreators from './actionCreators'
import { bindActionCreators } from 'redux'

function mapStateToProps(state) {
  return { todos: state.todos }
}

function mapDispatchToProps(dispatch) {
  return { actions: bindActionCreators(actionCreators, dispatch) }
}

export default connect(mapStateToProps, mapDispatchToProps)(TodoApp)

• Inject todos and a specific action creator (addTodo)

import { addTodo } from './actionCreators'
import { bindActionCreators } from 'redux'

function mapStateToProps(state) {
  return { todos: state.todos }
}

function mapDispatchToProps(dispatch) {
  return bindActionCreators({ addTodo }, dispatch)
}

export default connect(mapStateToProps, mapDispatchToProps)(TodoApp)

• Inject todos and specific action creators (addTodo and deleteTodo) with shorthand syntax

import { addTodo, deleteTodo } from './actionCreators'

function mapStateToProps(state) {
  return { todos: state.todos }
}

const mapDispatchToProps = {
  addTodo,
  deleteTodo,
}

export default connect(mapStateToProps, mapDispatchToProps)(TodoApp)

• Inject todos, todoActionCreators as todoActions, and counterActionCreators as counterActions

import * as todoActionCreators from './todoActionCreators'
import * as counterActionCreators from './counterActionCreators'
import { bindActionCreators } from 'redux'

function mapStateToProps(state) {
  return { todos: state.todos }
}

function mapDispatchToProps(dispatch) {
  return {
    todoActions: bindActionCreators(todoActionCreators, dispatch),
    counterActions: bindActionCreators(counterActionCreators, dispatch),
  }
}

export default connect(mapStateToProps, mapDispatchToProps)(TodoApp)

• Inject todos, and todoActionCreators and counterActionCreators together as actions

import * as todoActionCreators from './todoActionCreators'
import * as counterActionCreators from './counterActionCreators'
import { bindActionCreators } from 'redux'

function mapStateToProps(state) {
  return { todos: state.todos }
}

function mapDispatchToProps(dispatch) {
  return {
    actions: bindActionCreators(
      { ...todoActionCreators, ...counterActionCreators },
      dispatch
    ),
  }
}

export default connect(mapStateToProps, mapDispatchToProps)(TodoApp)

• Inject todos, and all todoActionCreators and counterActionCreators directly as props

import * as todoActionCreators from './todoActionCreators'
import * as counterActionCreators from './counterActionCreators'
import { bindActionCreators } from 'redux'

function mapStateToProps(state) {
  return { todos: state.todos }
}

function mapDispatchToProps(dispatch) {
  return bindActionCreators(
    { ...todoActionCreators, ...counterActionCreators },
    dispatch
  )
}

export default connect(mapStateToProps, mapDispatchToProps)(TodoApp)

• Inject todos of a specific user depending on props

import * as actionCreators from './actionCreators'

function mapStateToProps(state, ownProps) {
  return { todos: state.todos[ownProps.userId] }
}

export default connect(mapStateToProps)(TodoApp)

• Inject todos of a specific user depending on props, and inject props.userId into the action

import * as actionCreators from './actionCreators'

function mapStateToProps(state) {
  return { todos: state.todos }
}

function mergeProps(stateProps, dispatchProps, ownProps) {
  return Object.assign({}, ownProps, {
    todos: stateProps.todos[ownProps.userId],
    addTodo: (text) => dispatchProps.addTodo(ownProps.userId, text),
  })
}

export default connect(mapStateToProps, actionCreators, mergeProps)(TodoApp)

Notes

The Arity of mapToProps Functions

The number of declared function parameters of mapStateToProps and mapDispatchToProps determines whether they receive ownProps

Note: ownProps is not passed to mapStateToProps and mapDispatchToProps if the formal definition of the function contains one mandatory parameter (function has length 1). For example, functions defined like below won't receive ownProps as the second argument

function mapStateToProps(state) {
  console.log(state) // state
  console.log(arguments[1]) // undefined
}

const mapStateToProps = (state, ownProps = {}) => {
  console.log(state) // state
  console.log(ownProps) // {}
}

Functions with no mandatory parameters or two parameters*will receive ownProps.

const mapStateToProps = (state, ownProps) => {
  console.log(state) // state
  console.log(ownProps) // ownProps
}

function mapStateToProps() {
  console.log(arguments[0]) // state
  console.log(arguments[1]) // ownProps
}

const mapStateToProps = (...args) => {
  console.log(args[0]) // state
  console.log(args[1]) // ownProps
}

Factory Functions

If your mapStateToProps or mapDispatchToProps functions return a function, they will be called once when the component instantiates, and their returns will be used as the actual mapStateToProps, mapDispatchToProps, functions respectively, in their subsequent calls.

The factory functions are commonly used with memoized selectors. This gives you the ability to create component-instance-specific selectors inside the closure:

const makeUniqueSelectorInstance = () =>
  createSelector([selectItems, selectItemId], (items, itemId) => items[itemId])
const makeMapState = (state) => {
  const selectItemForThisComponent = makeUniqueSelectorInstance()
  return function realMapState(state, ownProps) {
    const item = selectItemForThisComponent(state, ownProps.itemId)
    return { item }
  }
}
export default connect(makeMapState)(SomeComponent)