Preloading getServerSideProps data with Next.js? - reactjs

I've got a simple React component:
const Page = ({ data }) => {
return (
<header>
{data.length !== 0 ?
<>
{data((d) =>
// render data
)}
</>
:
<>Loading...</>
}
</header>
)
}
I'm getting the data using Next.js recommended getServerSideProps:
export async function getServerSideProps() {
// Fetch data from external API
const res = await fetch(`someurl`)
const data = await res.json()
// Pass data to the page via props
return { props: { data } }
}
Now, for the love of God, I can't figure out why <>Loading...</> is never rendering. The page is blank and then everything pops up. Why does it happen and how do I fix that? of course data.length IS 0 before it's fetched...
Note I'm using dynamic routing and do not want to go with getStaticProps.

getServerSideProps always runs on server side also for client side navigation.
When you return data from getServerSideProps (if the fetch method is executed without errors) it will have always return a value.
In your example <Loading /> will be visible only if data returned from fetch has 0 length and will never be visible during fetch.
Here the docs https://nextjs.org/docs/basic-features/data-fetching#getserversideprops-server-side-rendering

It's obvious that user should not wait a few seconds in which nothing happens (because getServerSideProps is not finished loading) when he clicks a link. He should see some action is happening, for example:
Loading spinner
Data template (boxes for images, text and so on), youtube example.
But for now it's not possible with getServerSideProps, because page is rendered only after getServerSideProps request is complete.
There is exist future request on next.js about this, so i hope it will be implemented.

you need to use isFallback method provided by there next/router. have a look on this code try to look for isfallback https://github.com/vercel/next-site/blob/master/pages/docs/%5B%5B...slug%5D%5D.js.
Edit:
`export async function getServerSideProps() {
Fetch data from external API
const res = await fetch(someurl)
const data = await res.json()
Pass data to the page via props
return {
props: res ? {
data,
id,
url,
} : {}
};
}
`
and in your component
const router = useRouter();
const { isFallback } = router
if (isFallback) {
return <Loading />
}
else {
return (
// render data
)
}

Related

MobX not hydrating in next.js state when fetching async data

I have a MobX store where I have a function doing an API call. It works fine it's getting the data but it doesn't update the already rendered page. I'm following this tutorial https://medium.com/#borisdedejski/next-js-mobx-and-typescript-boilerplate-for-beginners-9e28ac190f7d
My store looks like this
const isServer = typeof window === "undefined";
enableStaticRendering(isServer);
interface SerializedStore {
PageTitle: string;
content: string;
isOpen: boolean;
companiesDto: CompanyDto[],
companyCats: string[]
};
export class AwardStore {
PageTitle: string = 'Client Experience Awards';
companiesDto : CompanyDto[] = [];
companyCats: string[] = [];
loadingInitial: boolean = true
constructor() {
makeAutoObservable(this)
}
hydrate(serializedStore: SerializedStore) {
this.PageTitle = serializedStore.PageTitle != null ? serializedStore.PageTitle : "Client Experience Awards";
this.companyCats = serializedStore.companyCats != null ? serializedStore.companyCats : [];
this.companiesDto = serializedStore.companiesDto != null ? serializedStore.companiesDto : [];
}
changeTitle = (newTitle: string) => {
this.PageTitle = newTitle;
}
loadCompanies = async () => {
this.setLoadingInitial(true);
axios.get<CompanyDto[]>('MyAPICall')
.then((response) => {
runInAction(() => {
this.companiesDto = response.data.sort((a, b) => a.name.localeCompare(b.name));
response.data.map((company : CompanyDto) => {
if (company.categories !== null ) {
company.categories?.forEach(cat => {
this.addNewCateogry(cat)
})
}
})
console.log(this.companyCats);
this.setLoadingInitial(false);
})
})
.catch(errors => {
this.setLoadingInitial(false);
console.log('There was an error getting the data: ' + errors);
})
}
addNewCateogry = (cat : string) => {
this.companyCats.push(cat);
}
setLoadingInitial = (state: boolean) => {
this.loadingInitial = state;
}
}
export async function fetchInitialStoreState() {
// You can do anything to fetch initial store state
return {};
}
I'm trying to call the loadcompanies from the _app.js file. It calls it and I can see in the console.log the companies etc but the state doesn't update and I don't get to see the actual result. Here's the _app.js
class MyApp extends App {
constructor(props) {
super(props);
// Don't call this.setState() here!
this.state = {
awardStore: new AwardStore()
};
this.state.awardStore.loadCompanies();
}
// Fetching serialized(JSON) store state
static async getInitialProps(appContext) {
const appProps = await App.getInitialProps(appContext);
const initialStoreState = await fetchInitialStoreState();
return {
...appProps,
initialStoreState
};
}
// Hydrate serialized state to store
static getDerivedStateFromProps(props, state) {
state.awardStore.hydrate(props.initialStoreState);
return state;
}
render() {
const { Component, pageProps } = this.props;
return (
<Provider awardStore={this.state.awardStore}>
<Component {...pageProps} />
</Provider>
);
}
}
export default MyApp;
In the console.log I can see that this.companyCat is update but nothing is changed in the browser. Any ideas how I can do this? Thank you!
When you do SSR you can't load data through the constructor of the store because:
It's does not handle async stuff, so you can't really wait until the data is loaded
Store is created both on the server side and on the client too, so if theoretically constructor could work with async then it still would not make sense to do it here because it would load data twice, and with SSR you generally want to avoid this kind of situations, you want to load data once and reuse data, that was fetched on the server, on the client.
With Next.js the flow is quite simple:
On the server you load all the data that is needed, in your case it's loaded on the App level, but maybe in the future you might want to have loader for each page to load data more granularly. Overall it does not change the flow though
Once the data is loaded (through getInitialProps method or any other Next.js data fetching methods), you hydrate your stores and render the application on the server side and send html to the client, that's SSR
On the client the app is initialized again, though this time you don't want to load the data, but use the data which server already fetched and used. This data is provided through props to your page component (or in this case App component). So you grab the data and just hydrate the store (in this case it's done with getDerivedStateFromProps).
Based on that, everything you want to fetch should happen inside getInitialProps. And you already have fetchInitialStoreState method for that, so all you need to do is remove data fetching from store constructor and move it to fetchInitialStoreState and only return the data from it. This data will then go to the hydrate method of your store.
I've made a quick reproduction of your code here:
The huge downside if App.getInitialProps is that it runs on every page navigation, which is probably not what you want to do. I've added console.log("api call") and you can see in the console that it is logged every time you navigate to any other page, so the api will be called every time too, but you already have the data so it's kinda useless. So I recommend in the future to use more granular way of loading data, for example with Next.js getServerSideProps function instead (docs).
But the general flow won't change much anyway!
Calling awardStore.loadCompanies in the constructor of MyApp is problematic because the loadCompanies method is populating the store class. What you want is to hydrate the store with the companyCats data. Since server and client stores are distinct, you want to load the data you need on the server side i.e. fetchInitialStoreState (or load it from a page's getStaticProps/getServerSideProps method) so that you can pass it into the hydrate store method from page/app props.
Note loadCompanies is async so it'll be [] when getDerivedStateFromProps is called so there's nothing to hydrate. For your existing hydrate method to work you need initialStoreState to be something like the fetchInitialStoreState method below. Alternatively if it's fetched on the page level, the hydrate may be closer to initialData?.pageProps?.companyCats
It's common to see the store hydration as needed for each page though it's still valid to call loadCompanies() from the client side. There's a lot I didn't get a chance to touch on but hopefully this was somewhat helpful.
export const fetchInitialStoreState = async() => {
let companyCats = [];
try {
const response = await axios.get < CompanyDto[] > ('MyAPICall')
response.data.map((company: CompanyDto) => {
if (Array.isArray(company.categories) && company.categories.length > 0) {
companyCats.push(...company.categories)
}
})
} catch (error) {
// Uh oh...
}
return {
serializedStore: {
companyCats,
// PageTitle/etc
}
}
}

how can I refetch with getServerSideProps in next on a click on client side?

I am using next.js, and trying to refresh the page with SSR data on a click of a button, doing like so:
import type { NextPage } from 'next'
import { useState } from 'react'
type HomeProps = NextPage & {
data: any
}
const Home = ({data}: HomeProps) => {
const [index, setIndex] = useState(data)
const handleClick = async() => {
const res = await fetch(`https://fakerapi.it/api/v1/companies?_quantity=2`)
const data= await res.json()
setIndex(data)
}
return (
<div>
{data.data.map(el => (
<div key={el.id}>{el.name}</div>
))}
<button onClick={handleClick}>next</button>
</div>
)
}
export async function getServerSideProps(){
const res = await fetch(`https://fakerapi.it/api/v1/companies?_quantity=1`)
const data= await res.json()
return{ props:{data}}
}
export default Home
I am getting the result of the first API call when next renders the page the first time, but when I click on the button, even though I am getting the result from the API call, the page does not refresh... Even thought I am using useState which should force the page to refresh.
Because of the way getServerSideProps works, you could refresh the data on the client-side using router object.
For example, when you click your button it could call a function to programmatically navigate to that same page using: router.replace(router.asPath).
This works because since getServerSideProps runs on every request, and you're already on the client-side and doing a navigation to a SSR page, instead of generating an HTML file, it will send the data as JSON to the client.
This is not a very good solution UX wise tho, but if used correctly it can be very handy.
oops my bad, i was not printing out the result of the useState, here is the proper change in the return of the function :
return (
<div>
{index.data.map(el => (
<div key={el.id}>{el.name}</div>
))}
<button onClick={handleClick}>next</button>
</div>
)

How to show loading state only if data is not received yet. Next.js ssr

I have multiple getServerSideProps in my project and I have a header which displays pages and I have to wait for a page to be opened once I click upon it since I need data to be fetched. Once they are fetched the page will be open.
One approach I used to show user a loading state is to use routeChangeStart BUT I stumbled upon one problem and so I would like not to use this case.
If I go on a page and the data is fetching I want to show user a spinner or some indicator and once the data is fetched I want to stop the indicator/spinner.
As you probably figured out, getServerSideProps runs on the server and is blocking. The fetch request needs to complete before the HTML is sent to the user (i.e., the page is changed). So if you want to show a loading indicator, you need to move that fetch request to the client.
For instance, if you probably have a page with this basic structure:
export default function Page({ data }) {
return <div>{data.name}</div>
}
export async function getServerSideProps() {
const response = await fetch('https://example.com/api')
const data = await response.json()
return {
props: { data },
}
}
const fetcher = url => fetch(url).then(res => res.json());
export default function Page() {
const { data } = useSWR('https://example.com/api', fetcher)
if (!data) return <LoadingSpinner />
return <div>{data.name}</div>
}
Or if you don't need SWR and can use a simple fetch request:
export default function Page() {
const [data, setData] = useState()
useEffect(() => {
fetch('https://example.com/api')
.then(async(response) => {
const json = await response.json()
setData(json)
})
})
if (!data) return <LoadingSpinner />
return <div>{data.name}</div>
}
P.S. If the initial fetch request in getServerSideProps used sensitive information (e.g., API secret credentials), then go ahead and setup a Next.js API route to handle the sensitive part and then fetch the new route.
I just used routeChangeStart.
I didn't want to use it since router.push('/map') didn't work in pages/index.tsx file but I solved this issue by creating a new component putting router.push in useeffect and rendering a loader.
routeChangeStart was in _app.js and because of this in index.js router.push() didn't work - I tested it
routeChangeStart - how it works?
When we click on a page the data is being fetched on the server and the page will only be displayed to us once the data is fetched. So we can make the next thing, we can just intercept the route change.
When we click on a link(we wait for data to fetch) we set loading state in routeChangeStart to true and if we moved to another page(it means we fetched the data) we invoke routeChangeComplete which runs once we moved to the route we wanted to, and here we set loading state to false. And after this I just pass the loading state using React Context

Next.js - Footer / Header loading via API only once, server side

I'm building a Next.js headless application, where I'm getting the data via API calls to an Umbraco backend. Im using getServerSideProps to load the data for each of my pages, which then is passed as "data" into the functional component and into the page.
The issue I have is that I have separate endpoints for the header / footer portion of the website, and is shared across all pages. Thus, it is a shame, and bad practice to do 3 calls per page (header, data, footer).
What could be done, in order to get header / footer once, then keep it across multiple pages, while maintaining SSR? (important). I've tried using cookies, but they cannot hold so much data. Below is some code:
Page Fetching data:
export async function getServerSideProps({ locale }) {
const footer = await Fetcher(footerEndPoint, locale);
return {
props: {
locale: locale,
footer: footer
}
}
}
Layout
const Layout = (props) => {
const { children, footer } = props;
return (
<>
<Header />
<main>
{children}
</main>
<Footer footer={footer} />
</>
);
};
export default Layout;
I see three options to achieve SSR-only data fetching once for things that won't ever change between page transitions:
1. getInitialProps() in _app.ts
You can just use getInitialProps() in _app.tsx. This runs on the server first and you can just cache the response value in a variable. Next time getInitialProps() is executed, it will just serve the cached value instead of firing another request. To make this work client-side, you have to rehydrate the cache variable in an useEffect:
// pages/_app.tsx
let navigationPropsCache
function MyApp({ Component, pageProps, navigationProps }) {
useEffect(
()=>{
navigationPropsCache = navigationProps
},
[]
)
return <>
<Navigation items={navigationProps}/>
<Component {...pageProps} />
</>
}
MyApp.getInitialProps = async () => {
if(navigationPropsCache) {
return {navigationProps: navigationPropsCache}
}
const res = await fetch("http://localhost:3000/api/navigation")
const navigationProps = await res.json()
navigationPropsCache = navigationProps
return {navigationProps}
}
Note that getInitialProps() is a deprecated feature since next 9.3. Not sure how long this will be supported in the the future. See: https://nextjs.org/docs/api-reference/data-fetching/getInitialProps
See https://github.com/breytex/firat500/tree/trivial-getInitialProps for full code example.
2. Use a custom next server implementation
This solution is based on two ideas:
Use a custom server.ts to intercept the nextjs SSR feature. Fetch all the data you need, render the navbar and footer serverside, inject the component HTML into the SSR result.
Rehydrate the DOM based on stringified versions of the fetched data you also attached to the DOM as a <script>.
// server/index.ts
server.all("*", async (req, res) => {
const html = await app.renderToHTML(req, res, req.path, req.query);
const navigationProps = await getNavigationProps()
const navigationHtml = renderToString(React.createElement(Navigation, {items: navigationProps}))
const finalHtml = html
.replace("</body>", `<script>window.navigationProps = ${JSON.stringify(navigationProps)};</script></body>`)
.replace("{{navigation-placeholder}}", navigationHtml)
return res.send(finalHtml);
});
// components/Navigation.tsx
export const Navigation: React.FC<Props> = ({items})=>{
const [finalItems, setFinalItems] = useState(items ?? [])
useEffect(
()=>{
setFinalItems((window as any).navigationProps)
},
[]
)
if(!Array.isArray(finalItems) || finalItems.length === 0) return <div>{"{{navigation-placeholder}}"}</div>
return (
<div style={{display:"flex", maxWidth: "500px", justifyContent: "space-between", marginTop: "100px"}}>
{finalItems.map(item => <NavigationItem {...item}/>)}
</div>
)
}
I'd consider this a pretty dirty example for now, but you could build something powerful based on this.
See full code here: https://github.com/breytex/firat500/tree/next-link-navigation
3. Use react-ssr-prepass to exec all data fetching server side
This uses a custom made fetch wrapper which has some kind of cache
The React component tree is traversed server side, and all data fetching functions are executed. This populates the cache.
The state of the cache is sent to the client and rehydrates the client side cache
On DOM rehydration all data is served from that cache, so no request is sent a second time
This example is a little bit longer and based on the outstanding work of the urql project: https://github.com/FormidableLabs/next-urql/blob/master/src/with-urql-client.tsx
See full example here: https://github.com/breytex/firat500/tree/prepass
Conclusion:
I'd personally would go with option #1 as long as its feasible.
#3 looks like an approach with a good developer experience, suitable for bigger teams. #2 needs some love to actually be useful :D

where to use getInitialProps when auto-direct from one page to another

In my application I am auto-directing from '/' to '/PageOne' like this:
const Home = () => {
const router = useRouter();
useEffect(() => {
router.push('/pageone', undefined, { shallow: true });
}, []);
return <PageOne />;
};
and in my PageOne, I want to use getInitialProps like:
const pageOne = (data) => {
return (
<Layout>
...
</Layout>
);
};
pageOne.getInitialProps = async (
ctx: NextPageContext
): Promise<{ data }> => {
const response = await someAPICall()
return {
data: response.data
};
};
export default pageOne;
This will cause an error in my Home page because I referenced to PageOne using and it is missing the param "data", but I'm not able to pass the data to because the data are not there when rendering Home page.
Shall I call the API to get data in Home page instead of PageOne? If I do so, will refreshing PageOne leads to another API call to get most recent data or the API will be called only when refreshing Home page?
Do not use shallow routing because that is meant to just change the url - a good use case is adding a query string or indicating to the application that something has changed when its bookmarked, e.g: ?chat=true (not your usecase)
Shallow routing allows you to change the URL without running data fetching methods again, that includes getServerSideProps, getStaticProps, and getInitialProps.
It's one of the caveats called out in this page => https://nextjs.org/docs/routing/shallow-routing#caveats
If not already, you would benefit from starting to use global state in your application
https://github.com/vercel/next.js/tree/canary/examples/with-redux
or you can use in-built features:
https://www.basefactor.com/global-state-with-react

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