- Published on
Using generator function in React
To get sequence of values predictably
- Authors
- Name
- Nico Prananta
- Follow me on Bluesky
Vercel recently announced the new 3.0 version of their AI SDK with support for Generative UI. What caught my eye was the new render method, where developers can map specific calls to React Server Components. Notably, it uses a generator function to sequentially render different components, as shown below:
import { render } from 'ai/rsc'
import OpenAI from 'openai'
import { z } from 'zod'
const openai = new OpenAI()
async function submitMessage(userInput) { // 'What is the weather in SF?'
'use server'
return render({
provider: openai,
model: 'gpt-4',
messages: [
{ role: 'system', content: 'You are a helpful assistant' },
{ role: 'user', content: userInput }
],
text: ({ content }) => <p>{content}</p>,
tools: {
get_city_weather: {
description: 'Get the current weather for a city',
parameters: z.object({
city: z.string().describe('the city')
}).required(),
render: async function* ({ city }) { // <--- THIS!
yield <Spinner/>
const weather = await getWeather(city)
return <Weather info={weather} />
}
}
}
})
}
From what I have gathered, when the user requests the weather for a city, the SDK sends the prompt to OpenAI. OpenAI then "calls" get_city_weather, passing the requested city as the city parameter. Initially, the SDK "yields" or returns a Spinner component to the browser, then it retrieves the weather information from an external service, and finally returns a Weather component with the included weather data. Thus, instead of sending the weather data in, say, JSON format for React in the browser to render the Weather component, this SDK streams the rendered React components directly to the browser. Quite impressive.
What intrigued me, however, was the use of the generator function, prompting me to search the web to see if anyone has done something similar. I discovered that Tomasz Gil has written about using generator functions to implement dynamic breadcrumbs in the article Using Generators in React Components. He introduced a React hook named useValueEffect, which is used to calculate how many elements of the breadcrumbs can fit in the available space. Here is the code for useValueEffect:
function useValueEffect(defaultValue) {
const [value, setValue] = useState(defaultValue)
const effect = useRef(null)
// Store the function in a ref so we can always access the current version
// which has the proper `value` in scope.
const nextRef = useRef(null)
nextRef.current = () => {
// Run the generator to the next yield.
const newValue = effect.current.next()
// If the generator is done, reset the effect.
if (newValue.done) {
effect.current = null
return
}
// If the value is the same as the current value,
// then continue to the next yield. Otherwise,
// set the value in state and wait for the next layout effect.
if (value === newValue.value) {
nextRef.current()
} else {
setValue(newValue.value)
}
}
useLayoutEffect(() => {
// If there is an effect currently running, continue to the next yield.
if (effect.current) {
nextRef.current()
}
})
const queue = useCallback(
(fn) => {
effect.current = fn()
nextRef.current()
},
[effect, nextRef]
)
return [value, queue]
}
The idea of useValueEffect resembles React's useEffect, returning the value that changes over time along with the function to set the value. The difference is that useValueEffect returns a function into which one can pass a generator function that yields different values. Within the generator function, we can specify the conditions to set the new value over time.
In his case, he wanted to determine the number of items that could fit into the available width of his breadcrumb component. To achieve this, he first rendered all items, then calculated how many items could fit within the breadcrumb's width, and finally rendered only the visible items, as demonstrated below.
export function Breadcrumbs({ children }: {children: React.ReactNode}) {
const childrenCount = React.Children.count(children);
const [visibleItemsCount, setVisibleItemsCount] = useValueEffect(
childrenCount
);
const updateOverflow = useCallback(() => {
function computeVisibleItems(currentVisibleItemsCount) {
let newItemsCount = 0;
// calculations...
return newItemsCount;
}
setVisibleItemsCount(function* () {
yield childrenCount;
const newVisibleItems = computeVisibleItems(childrenCount);
yield newVisibleItems;
});
}, [setVisibleItemsCount, childrenCount]);
useLayoutEffect(updateOverflow, [children, updateOverflow]);
...
}
His example is very practical but a bit complicated. Therefore, I created a simpler example using a slightly modified version of his useValueEffect. Based on his code, I developed useValueAsyncEffect written in TypeScript. Unlike his code, this hook can handle async generator functions and uses useEffect instead of useLayoutEffect, since I don't need the effect to run before the browser repaints the screen.
type AsyncGeneratorYield<T> = AsyncGenerator<T, void, unknown>
type UseValueAsyncEffectReturnType<T> = [T, (fn: () => AsyncGeneratorYield<T>) => void]
export function useValueAsyncEffect<T>(defaultValue: T): UseValueAsyncEffectReturnType<T> {
const [value, setValue] = useState<T>(defaultValue)
const effect = useRef<AsyncGeneratorYield<T> | null>(null)
const nextRef = useRef<() => Promise<void>>(async () => {})
nextRef.current = async () => {
if (!effect.current) return
const newValue = await effect.current.next() // Await the next value from the async generator
if (newValue.done) {
effect.current = null
return
}
if (value !== newValue.value) {
setValue(newValue.value)
} else {
// Immediately try to get the next value if the current value hasn't changed
await nextRef.current()
}
}
useEffect(() => {
// Execute the nextRef function if there is an effect to process
if (effect.current) {
nextRef.current()
}
})
const queue = useCallback(
(fn: () => AsyncGeneratorYield<T>) => {
effect.current = fn()
nextRef.current()
},
[effect, nextRef]
)
return [value, queue]
}
Using that hook, I created a simple simulation:
- The user clicks a button.
- The app displays a loading indicator and then fetches a movie from an external API or database.
- The app displays the movie information.
- The app shows another loading indicator and then fetches the cast of the movie from an external API or database.
- Finally, the app displays the cast information beneath the movie details.
You can see the demo on this page and the code in the repository of this blog. Note that the page doesn't actually make API calls; it simply simulates the pending state with setTimeout.
The code implementing the above use case with useValueAsyncEffect is provided below.
export const MovieResult = () => {
const [value, setValue] = useValueAsyncEffect<ReactNode[]>([])
return (
<div>
<button
className="rounded-md bg-green-400 px-4 py-2 text-white"
onClick={() => {
setValue(async function* () {
const loading = (
<p key="1" className="text-sm text-gray-500">
Faking fetching movies ...
</p>
)
yield [loading]
// Say we call an API to get a movie based on user's search term. The API returns a movie object that has the ID of the movie.
await new Promise<void>((resolve) => {
setTimeout(() => resolve(), 3000)
})
const movie = <Movie />
yield [movie]
// next we call another API to get the casts based on the ID of the movie
const loadingCasts = (
<p key="1" className="text-sm text-gray-500">
Faking fetching the movie casts ...
</p>
)
yield [movie, loadingCasts]
// fetch the movie casts
await new Promise<void>((resolve) => {
setTimeout(() => resolve(), 3000)
})
const characters = <MovieCasts />
yield [movie, characters]
})
}}
>
Get the movie
</button>
<div className="space-y-4 py-4">{value}</div>
</div>
)
}
As you can see, in the generator function, I yield different values over time, and that value, which is an array of React components, is rendered inside the MovieResult component.
We can take it further. What if we want to allow the user to cancel the operation? We can use the standard AbortController! But we also need to define a UI state and the value from useValueAsyncEffect should also contain information of the status of the operation.
export const MovieResult = () => {
const cancel = useRef<AbortController | null>(null)
const [state, setState] = useState<'idle' | 'loading' | 'cancelling'>('idle') // the state of the button. 'idle' is when the operation is not running anymore. 'loading' is when the operation is running. 'cancelling' is when the user just clicks the cancel button. The 'cancelling' statate is needed because the operation isn't immediately stopped when the user cancels it. Once the operation in generator function exits, the state should change to 'idle'.
const [value, setValue] = useValueAsyncEffect<{
components: ReactNode[] | null
status: 'done' | 'cancelled' | 'pending' // status of the operation in the generator function. 'done' is when everything is completed. 'cencelled' when the generator function exits because of AbortController. 'pending' is when the generator function yield something but not the end of the operation
} | null>(null)
useEffect(() => {
// Set state to 'idle' when the operation is cancelled or done so that the button's text goes back to Get the movie
if (
(cancel.current?.signal.aborted && value?.status === 'cancelled') ||
value?.status === 'done'
) {
setState('idle')
}
}, [value])
const handleClick = () => {
if (state === 'loading') {
// cancel the operation when the operation is running
cancel.current?.abort()
setState('cancelling')
return
}
setState('loading')
cancel.current = new AbortController()
setValue(async function* () {
const loading = (
<p key="1" className="text-sm text-gray-500">
Faking fetching movies ...
</p>
)
yield { components: [loading], status: 'pending' }
await new Promise<void>((resolve) => {
setTimeout(() => resolve(), 3000)
})
if (cancel.current?.signal.aborted) {
yield { components: null, status: 'cancelled' }
return
}
const movie = <Movie key="2" />
yield { components: [movie], status: 'pending' }
const loadingCasts = (
<p key="3" className="text-sm text-gray-500">
Faking fetching the movie casts ...
</p>
)
yield { components: [movie, loadingCasts], status: 'pending' }
await new Promise<void>((resolve) => {
setTimeout(() => resolve(), 3000)
})
if (cancel.current?.signal.aborted) {
yield { components: null, status: 'cancelled' }
return
}
const characters = <MovieCasts key="4" />
yield { components: [movie, characters], status: 'done' }
})
}
return (
<div>
<button className="rounded-md bg-green-400 px-4 py-2 text-white" onClick={handleClick}>
{state === 'loading' ? 'Cancel' : state === 'idle' ? 'Get the movie' : 'Cancelling...'}
</button>
{value?.components ? <div className="space-y-4 py-4">{value?.components}</div> : null}
</div>
)
}
This is just a simple example to demonstrate the capabilities of useValueAsyncEffect. In production, it would be better to use Suspense and React Server Components to fetch the movie and cast data simultaneously and then render them. This hook is more useful if you need to perform several actions sequentially and update the UI simultaneously. For example, you might want to update 1000 rows in the database one or several rows at a time because you don't want to exhaust the available database connections. But as each row is processed, you want to show the status in the UI to the user.
I rarely use generator functions and found the term yield a bit confusing as a non-native speaker. But this stuff is fascinating! Have you tried using generator functions in your React projects? Let me know!
By the way, I have a book about Pull Requests Best Practices. Check it out!