What is the best way to access redux store outside a react component?

Easy Access to Redux Store Outside a React Component 🌟

So you've got the hang of using @connect to access the Redux store within a React component, but now you find yourself in a situation where you need to access the store outside of a component. Specifically, you want to use an authorization token from the store in your api.js file to create a global Axios instance for your app. Fear not -- we've got a simple and efficient solution for you! 😎

The Challenge 🤔

Let's quickly recap the problem: you want to access a data point from your Redux store (specifically, the authorization token) and use it in your api.js file to set the Axios headers. However, traditional methods like @connect won't work outside of a component. So, how can you achieve global access to the Redux store in a non-component file?

The Solution 💡

Introducing the redux package, the powerhouse behind Redux which allows us to access the store from anywhere in our app. To utilize this package, we need to follow a few simple steps:

1. Install the redux package via your favorite package manager:

   npm install redux

2. Import the necessary redux functions in your api.js file:

   import { createStore } from 'redux'

3. Initialize the Redux store with your reducers:

   import rootReducer from './reducers' // assuming your reducers are in a separate file const store = createStore(rootReducer)

4. Export the Redux store:

   export default store

5. Back in your api.js file, import the Redux store:

   import store from './store'

6. Now, you can access the store's data using getState(). Here's an example of how you can retrieve the authorization token:

   const authToken = store.getState().auth.tokens.authorization_token

Optimizing the Solution 🚀

While the above solution works perfectly fine, we can make it a bit more elegant by utilizing Redux's middleware functionality. By creating a custom middleware, we can set the Axios headers automatically whenever the authorization token changes. Here's how:

1. Install the redux-thunk package:

   npm install redux-thunk

2. Import the applyMiddleware function from redux and the thunk middleware from redux-thunk:

   import { createStore, applyMiddleware } from 'redux' import thunk from 'redux-thunk'

3. Update the store initialization code to include the thunk middleware:

   const store = createStore(rootReducer, applyMiddleware(thunk))

4. Create a custom middleware function:

   const updateAxiosHeaders = store => next => action => { if (action.type === 'UPDATE_AUTH_TOKEN') { const authToken = store.getState().auth.tokens.authorization_token // Set the Axios headers with the authorization token api.defaults.headers.common['Authorization'] = authToken } return next(action) }

5. Apply the custom middleware to your store:

   const store = createStore(rootReducer, applyMiddleware(thunk, updateAxiosHeaders))

6. Now, whenever the authToken changes in the Redux store (via an action like UPDATE_AUTH_TOKEN), the custom middleware will automatically update the Axios headers.

Call-to-Action ✨

And that's it! You now have a streamlined solution for accessing the Redux store outside of a React component and using it to set Axios headers. 🎉

We hope this guide has been helpful to you! If you have any further questions or insights, please share them in the comments below. Let's make accessing Redux store outside of a component a breeze for everyone! 💪