When working with JavaScript objects, it’s often necessary to update their properties in an immutable way to avoid unexpected side effects. Manually creating a new object with the updated properties can be tedious and error-prone. Luckily, there is a library called Immer that helps us handle these updates more easily and efficiently.

What is Immer?

Immer is a JavaScript library that allows us to work with immutable data structures in a more convenient manner. It provides a simple API to create copies of objects with updated properties, without mutating the original objects.

Installation

First, we need to install Immer via npm or yarn:

npm install immer

or

yarn add immer

Usage

Let’s dive into an example to understand how Immer works. Consider the following simple object:

const person = {
  name: "John",
  age: 30
};

Now, let’s update the age property of this object using Immer:

import produce from "immer";

const updatedPerson = produce(person, (draft) => {
  draft.age = 31;
});

In the above example, we imported the produce function from the immer package. We then called produce with the original person object and a draft function. The draft function receives a mutable draft object that we can modify as if it were the original object. Immer takes care of generating an immutable updated copy of the object.

The resulting updatedPerson object now has the age property set to 31, while the person object remains unchanged.

Benefits of Using Immer

Using Immer to update object properties immutably offers several benefits:

1. Simplicity: Immer provides an easy-to-use API that simplifies updating object properties in an immutable way.
2. Performance: Immer optimizes the creation of immutable copies by only creating new objects for the properties that have changed, resulting in better performance.
3. Readability: Immer code reads like mutable JavaScript code, making it easier to reason about and understand.

Conclusion

Immer is a powerful library for updating object properties immutably in JavaScript. It simplifies the process of working with immutable data structures and produces optimized code. By leveraging Immer, you can write cleaner and safer code when dealing with object updates.

Give Immer a try in your next JavaScript project and experience the benefits of working with immutable data structures more seamlessly.

#Tech #JavaScript