Support dot notation for :only keys in partial reloads #163

bknoles · 2024-11-14T22:16:49Z

Resolves #157

I also refactored the rendering logic a bit, to:

Only traverse the props hash a single time after it's merged with shared props
Put the prop filtering logic in a single place

Note: the renderer diff isn't very helpful; better to view the entire file to see how it looks now.

TODO:

add some more specs to test the interaction of all these crazy prop filtering types 😅
update docs to explain dot notation

bknoles · 2024-11-14T22:21:27Z

lib/inertia_rails/renderer.rb


-      drop_partial_except_keys(_props) if rendering_partial_component?
+      deep_transform_props _props do |prop, path|
+        next [:dont_keep] unless keep_prop?(prop, path)


Why return this array from the block now? Well, the block has two jobs 1) to filter out props we don't need and 2) transform the keepers into their final format. We want track those separately so that the transformation can return things that are nil/false-y. (i think the typical pattern here would be next nil unless some_condition?)

(This block will also be a nice place to rewrite the logic from #154 )

bknoles · 2024-11-14T22:22:17Z

lib/inertia_rails/renderer.rb

-
-      hash.transform_values {|value| deep_transform_values(value, &block)}
-    end
+    def deep_transform_props(props, parent_path = '', &block)


Similar logic as the previous method, but we're now also dealing with the results of the filtering within the hash we're building up and conditionally setting keys.

bknoles · 2024-11-14T22:25:06Z

lib/inertia_rails/renderer.rb

@@ -138,5 +134,35 @@ def resolve_component(component)

      configuration.component_path_resolver(path: controller.controller_path, action: controller.action_name)
    end
+
+    def keep_prop?(prop, path)


all the prop filtering logic now lives in one concise place. i debated pulling this out into a class, but I don't think the cleanliness is worth the extra indirection.

bknoles · 2024-11-14T22:28:18Z

lib/inertia_rails/renderer.rb

+      return true if prop.is_a?(AlwaysProp)
+
+      if rendering_partial_component?
+        path_with_prefixes = path_prefixes(path)


Maybe worth nothing that if we're in a partial reload, we'll end up calculating this array for every single prop key. That should still be way faster than fully evaluating all of those props, though.

skryukov

Love this, looks really clean!

skryukov · 2024-11-15T14:18:55Z

lib/inertia_rails/renderer.rb

+    end
+
+    def excluded_by_except_partial_keys?(path_with_prefixes)
+      partial_except_keys.present? && (path_with_prefixes & partial_except_keys.map(&:to_s)).any?


I think we can replace .filter_map(&:to_sym) in the partial_except_keys and then stop calling .map(&:to_s) here

And same for partial_keys

Suggested change

partial_except_keys.present? && (path_with_prefixes & partial_except_keys.map(&:to_s)).any?

partial_except_keys.present? && (path_with_prefixes & partial_except_keys).any?

skryukov · 2024-11-15T14:36:45Z

lib/inertia_rails/renderer.rb

-        parts = key.to_s.split('.').map(&:to_sym)
-        *initial_keys, last_key = parts
-        current = initial_keys.any? ? hash.dig(*initial_keys) : hash
+        if prop.is_a?(Hash)


I noticed that 'what_about_empty_hash' => {}, example will fail, here's a fix:

Suggested change

if prop.is_a?(Hash)

if prop.is_a?(Hash) && prop.any?

skryukov · 2024-11-15T14:46:06Z

lib/inertia_rails/renderer.rb

-    end
+    def deep_transform_props(props, parent_path = '', &block)
+      props.reduce({}) do |transformed_props, (key, prop)|
+        current_path = [parent_path, key].reject(&:empty?).join('.')


we can simplify this by sticking with arrays:

Suggested change

current_path = [parent_path, key].reject(&:empty?).join('.')

current_path = path + [key]

…d prop keys

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bknoles · 2024-11-21T05:22:26Z

Documentation here:

https://dot-notation-for-only-props.inertia-rails.pages.dev/guide/partial-reloads#dot-notation

BrandonShar

Looks good! only one small comment

BrandonShar · 2024-11-21T15:23:39Z

lib/inertia_rails/renderer.rb


-      drop_partial_except_keys(_props) if rendering_partial_component?
+      deep_transform_props _props do |prop, path|
+        next [:dont_keep] unless keep_prop?(prop, path)


nitpick: could we move these symbol values to constants since they're acting as an enum?

sure! as an aside, :dont_keep doesn't do anything at all... it's just there to reveal intention

chasegiunta · 2025-06-26T21:46:28Z

@bknoles I spent an absurd amount of time troubleshooting why only: ['nested.prop'] was wiping out the entire top-level prop instead of just reloading the nested one, before realizing this isn't a core Inertia feature, so the frontend has no idea the response would need to be merged in.

Is it possible to add this caveat to the rails documentation?

bknoles · 2025-06-27T02:46:21Z

Hey @chasegiunta can you describe your situation with some more detail? I need more information to figure out if you've stumbled into a bug or just a misunderstanding we could fix in the docs.

chasegiunta · 2025-06-27T15:12:41Z

@bknoles sure. I mean, easiest example would be I have a current_user shared prop. It looks something like this:

current_user: {
 first_name,
 last_name,
 email,
 organizations: { ... },
 preferences: { ... },
 slug
}

Writing a profile form, updating just the user's first & last name (no need to reload all the orgs, preferences, etc again). So we .post() and use only: ['current_user.first_name', 'current_user.last_name']. Doing this will force a reload of the entire current_user object prop and so the only thing returned from Inertia is

current_user: {
  first_name,
  last_name
}

Well, that's not ideal. Now if I have email, orgs, etc displayed elsewhere on the page (not in forms, just displayed in the UI), all that data is lost.

Why it doesn't work makes sense: it's not a Inertia core feature. The Inertia frontend library would have to be aware of which properties being returned in the response are meant to be merged into frontend props. It doesn't currently do that.

bknoles · 2025-06-27T17:48:06Z

Oh I see. Yea, partial data reloads overwrite props rather than merging them. The use case for dot notation :only keys in the Laravel adapter's test suite is instructive: the :only data really just serves to filter out a token property that isn't necessary at all on reloads. That's different than not wanting to reload something like organizations while still wanting them around in the UI.

Have you looked at the merging props section of the docs? I think it might be what you're after? Something like:

def create
  render 'Some/Page', props: {
    # :only keys should filter this down to a tiny response; performance benefits depends on how you render the JSON
    current_user: InertiaRails.merge(current_user)
  }
end

(caveat: i haven't built merge props into one of our apps so there may be a nuance my cursory review isn't capturing)

chasegiunta · 2025-06-27T18:11:28Z

@bknoles I tried playing with it, yeah, but couldn't quite get it. I think the syntax would actually be current_user: InertiaRails.merge { current_user }, right? (based on looking at the docs, not a ruby dev so forgive me), but we're using a serializer for the current_user anyway. Using only: ['current_user.first_name'] there would just omit current_user entirely in the response

bknoles · 2025-06-27T23:33:40Z

Ah yea, merging won't work either now that I think it through. We actually call this out in the docs:

The purpose of a partial reload is to prevent unnecessary computations by filtering out props before any callable props are evaluated. InertiaRails.merge() is a callable. From the perspective of the filtering algorithm, there are zero users with a "name" property in this code:

render inertia: 'SomePage', props: {
  users: -> { User.where(some_conditions) }
 }

because the filtering happens before User.where(some_conditions) is evaluated.

Maybe you could use a query parameter to render the user differently within a merge prop (I haven't tested this):

render inertia: 'SomePage', props: {
  current_user: InertiaRails.deep_merge{
    params[:give_me_the_slim_user_please] ? current_user.as_json(only: [:first_name, :last_name]) : current_user
   }
}

then in the JS

router.get(currentPagePath, { give_me_the_slim_user_please: 1 })

Basically, grabbing a subset of an evaluated prop and then merging it back into the Page isn't a workflow that partial reloading is capable of doing right now... so some creativity is required.

I will say that we're talking about this and would like to support complex fetching/merging more cleanly. But nothing ready as of today.

bknoles added 2 commits November 14, 2024 17:14

Support dot notation for :only keys in partial reloads

a42ea77

Remove no-longer-necessary code

c5653d2

bknoles commented Nov 14, 2024

View reviewed changes

skryukov reviewed Nov 15, 2024

View reviewed changes

bknoles added 5 commits November 20, 2024 22:39

Squeeze out a few more unncessary iterations

af8fb91

Don't filter out intentionally empty hashes from transformed props

776da3a

Add a couple more specs to satisfy curiosity

a62b21a

Add specs to document what happens if you try to only/except evaluate…

c6df93d

…d prop keys

Document dot notation in partial reloads

0c566ee

Fix closing tabs tag

c4606ef

BrandonShar approved these changes Nov 21, 2024

View reviewed changes

Use constants for the enum-like transformation actions

2027984

bknoles merged commit e11e8c5 into master Nov 21, 2024
13 checks passed

bknoles deleted the dot-notation-for-only-props branch November 21, 2024 15:47

bknoles mentioned this pull request Nov 26, 2024

Unoptimized partial reload warnings #165

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1 task

	partial_except_keys.present? && (path_with_prefixes & partial_except_keys.map(&:to_s)).any?
	partial_except_keys.present? && (path_with_prefixes & partial_except_keys).any?

	current_path = [parent_path, key].reject(&:empty?).join('.')
	current_path = path + [key]

Support dot notation for :only keys in partial reloads #163

Support dot notation for :only keys in partial reloads #163

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