Scenarios

• Reducer logic doing the same kinds of work for different types of data.
• Multiple instances of a certain type of data being handled in the store

Example

Multiple counters in the application named A, B and C

function counter(state = 0, action) {
    switch (action.type) {
        case 'INCREMENT':
            return state + 1;
        case 'DECREMENT':
            return state - 1;
        default:
            return state;
    }
}

const rootReducer = combineReducers({
    counterA : counter,
    counterB : counter,
    counterC : counter
});

Problems

Dispatching an action will cause all three counter values to be incremented, not just one of them

Solutions

Higher-order reducer is a function that takes a reducer function as an argument and returns a new reducer function

Specific higher-order reducer

Reducer to generate new action constants with a given prefix or suffix

function createCounterWithNamedType(counterName = '') {
    return function counter(state = 0, action) {
        switch (action.type) {
            case `INCREMENT_${counterName}`:
                return state + 1;
            case `DECREMENT_${counterName}`:
                return state - 1;
            default:
                return state;
        }
    }
}

Reducer to attach additional info inside the action object

function createCounterWithNameData(counterName = '') {
    return function counter(state = 0, action) {
        const {name} = action;
        if(name !== counterName) return state;

        switch (action.type) {
            case `INCREMENT`:
                return state + 1;
            case `DECREMENT`:
                return state - 1;
            default:
                return state;
        }
    }
}

Generic higher-order reducer

Accepts both reducer function and identifier

function createNamedWrapperReducer(reducerFunction, reducerName) {
    return (state, action) => {
        const {name} = action;
        const isInitializationCall = state === undefined;
        if(name !== reducerName && !isInitializationCall) return state;

        return reducerFunction(state, action);    
    }
}

const rootReducer = combineReducers({
    counterA : createNamedWrapperReducer(counter, 'A'),
    counterB : createNamedWrapperReducer(counter, 'B'),
    counterC : createNamedWrapperReducer(counter, 'C'),
});

With filtering

function createFilteredReducer(reducerFunction, reducerPredicate) {
    return (state, action) => {
        const isInitializationCall = state === undefined;
        const shouldRunWrappedReducer = reducerPredicate(action) || isInitializationCall;
        return shouldRunWrappedReducer ? reducerFunction(state, action) : state;
    }
}

const rootReducer = combineReducers({
    // check for suffixed strings
    counterA : createFilteredReducer(counter, action => action.type.endsWith('_A')),
    // check for extra data in the action
    counterB : createFilteredReducer(counter, action => action.name === 'B'),
    // respond to all 'INCREMENT' actions, but never 'DECREMENT'
    counterC : createFilteredReducer(counter, action => action.type === 'INCREMENT')
};