bloc 0.6.0

The goal of this package is to make it easy to implement the BLoC Design Pattern (Business Logic Component).

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A dart package that helps implement the Bloc pattern.

This package is built to work with RxDart.dart 0.18.1+.

Overview

The goal of this package is to make it easy to implement the Bloc Design Pattern (Business Logic Component).

This design pattern helps to separate presentation from business logic. Following the Bloc pattern facilitates testability and reusability. This package abstracts reactive aspects of the pattern allowing developers to focus on converting events into states.

Glossary

Events are the input to a Bloc. They are commonly UI events such as button presses. Events are dispatched and then converted to States.

States are the output of a Bloc. Presentation components can listen to the stream of states and redraw portions of themselves based on the given state (see BlocBuilder for more details).

Transitions occur when an Event is dispatched after mapEventToState has been called but before the Bloc's state has been updated. A Transition consists of the currentState, the event which was dispatched, and the nextState.

Bloc Interface

initialState is the state before any events have been processed (before mapEventToState has ever been called). initialState must be implemented.

mapEventToState is a method that must be implemented when a class extends Bloc. The function takes two arguments: state and event. mapEventToState is called whenever an event is dispatched by the presentation layer. mapEventToState must convert that event, along with the current state, into a new state and return the new state in the form of a Stream which is consumed by the presentation layer.

dispatch is a method that takes an event and triggers mapEventToState. dispatch may be called from the presentation layer or from within the Bloc (see examples) and notifies the Bloc of a new event.

transform is a method that can be overridden to transform the Stream<Event> before mapEventToState is called. This allows for operations like distinct() and debounce() to be used.

onTransition is a method that can be overridden to handle whenever a Transition occurs. A Transition occurs when a new Event is dispatched and mapEventToState is called. onTransition is called before a Bloc's state has been updated. It is a great place to add logging/analytics.

Usage

For simplicity we can create a Bloc that always returns a stream of static strings in response to any event. That would look something like:

class SimpleBloc extends Bloc<dynamic, String> {
  @override
  String get initialState => '';

  @override
  Stream<String> mapEventToState(String state, dynamic event) async* {
    yield 'data';
  }
}

That isn't a very realistic use-case so let's take something more practical like a login flow.

We're going to need to define what our different LoginStates are going to be. For simplicity, let's say we only have 4 states:

• initial
• loading
• failure
• success

class LoginState {
  final bool isLoading;
  final bool isLoginButtonEnabled;
  final String error;
  final String token;

  const LoginState({
    @required this.isLoading,
    @required this.isLoginButtonEnabled,
    @required this.error,
    @required this.token,
  });

  factory LoginState.initial() {
    return LoginState(
      isLoading: false,
      isLoginButtonEnabled: true,
      error: '',
      token: '',
    );
  }

  factory LoginState.loading() {
    return LoginState(
      isLoading: true,
      isLoginButtonEnabled: false,
      error: '',
      token: '',
    );
  }

  factory LoginState.failure(String error) {
    return LoginState(
      isLoading: false,
      isLoginButtonEnabled: true,
      error: error,
      token: '',
    );
  }

  factory LoginState.success(String token) {
    return LoginState(
      isLoading: false,
      isLoginButtonEnabled: true,
      error: '',
      token: token,
    );
  }
}

Next we need to define the different events that our Bloc will respond to. Again, for simplicity, let's say there is just a single event we will handle: LoginButtonPressed.

abstract class LoginEvent {}

class LoginButtonPressed extends LoginEvent {
  final String username;
  final String password;

  LoginButtonPressed({@required this.username, @required this.password});
}

Now that we've identified our states and events, our LoginBloc should look something like:

class LoginBloc extends Bloc<LoginEvent, LoginState> {
  LoginState get initialState => LoginState.initial();

  void onLoginButtonPressed({String username, String password}) {
    dispatch(
      LoginButtonPressed(
        username: username,
        password: password,
      ),
    );
  }

  @override
  Stream<LoginState> mapEventToState(LoginState state, LoginEvent event) async* {
    if (event is LoginButtonPressed) {
      yield LoginState.loading();

      try {
        final token = await _authenticate(event.username, event.password);
        yield LoginState.success(token);
      } catch (error) {
        yield LoginState.failure(error.toString());
      }
    }
  }
}

Dart Versions

• Dart 2: >= 2.0.0

Examples

• Simple Counter Example - an example of how to create a CounterBloc (pure dart)
• Login Flow Example - an example of how to use the bloc and flutter_bloc packages to implement a Login Flow.

Contributors

• Felix Angelov