@solid-primitives/storage

@solid-primitives/storage

Creates a primitive to reactively access both synchronous and asynchronous persistent storage APIs similar to localStorage.

Installation

npm install @solid-primitives/storage
# or
yarn add @solid-primitives/storage

How to use it

makePersisted allows you to persist a signal or store in any synchronous or asynchronous Storage API:

const [signal, setSignal] = makePersisted(createSignal("initial"), {storage: sessionStorage});
const [store, setStore] = makePersisted(createStore({test: true}), {name: "testing"});
type PersistedOptions<Type, StorageOptions> = {
  // localStorage is default
  storage?: Storage | StorageWithOptions | AsyncStorage | AsyncStorageWithOptions | LocalForage,
  // only required for storage APIs with options
  storageOptions?: StorageOptions,
  // key in the storage API
  name?: "...",
  // JSON.stringify is the default
  serialize?: (value: Type) => value.toString(),
  // JSON.parse is the default
  deserialize?: (value: string) => Type(value),
  // sync API (see below)
  sync?: PersistenceSyncAPI
};

• if no storage is given in options, localStorage is used
• if no name is given in options, a unique identifier from solid-js will be the default
• initial values of signals or stores are not persisted, so they can be safely changed
• values persisted in asynchronous storage APIs will not overwrite already changed signals or stores
• setting a persisted signal to undefined or null will remove the item from the storage
• to use makePersisted with other state management APIs, you need some adapter that will project your API to either the output of createSignal or createStore

Using makePersisted with resources

Instead of wrapping the resource itself, it is far simpler to use the storage option of the resource to provide a persisted signal or deep signal:

const [resource] = createResource(fetcher, { storage: makePersisted(createSignal()) });

If you are using an asynchronous storage to persist the state of a resource, it might receive an update due to being initialized from the storage before or after the fetcher resolved. If the initialization resolves after the fetcher, its result is discarded not to overwrite more current data.

Different storage APIs

LocalStorage, SessionStorage

In the browser, we already have localStorage, which persists values for the same hostname indefinitely, and sessionStorage, which does the same for the duration of the browser session, but loses persistence after closing the browser.

CookieStorage

As another storage, cookieStorage from this package can be used, which is a localStorage-like API to set cookies. It will work in the browser and on solid-start, by parsing the Cookie and Set-Cookie header and altering the Set-Cookie header. Using it in the server without solid-start will not cause errors, but reading and setting cookies will not work, unless you supply getRequestHeaders() => Headers and getResponseHeaders => Headers to the options.

// for example, in express.js request and response headers can usually be accessed like this:
const cs = cookieStorage.withOptions({
  getRequestHeaders: () => req.headers,
  getResponseHeaders: () => res.headers,
});

Please mind that cookieStorage doesn't care about the path and domain when reading cookies. This might cause issues when using multiple cookies with the same key, but different path or domain.

cookieStorage has been augmented with the .withOptions method that binds options to the other methods. This allows you to use predefined options for your persisted state:

const [state, setState] = makePersisted(createSignal(), {
  storage: cookieStorage.withOptions({ expires: new Date(+new Date() + 3e10) }),
});

HTTP headers are limited to 32kb, each header itself is limited to 16kb. So depending on your current headers, the space in cookieStorage is rather small. If the overall space is exceeded, subsequent requests will fail. We have no mechanism to prevent that, since we cannot infer all headers that the browser will set.

Browsers do not support most UTF8 and UTF16 characters in Cookies, so cookieStorage encodes those characters that are not supported using encodeURIComponent. To save space, only those characters not supported by all Browsers will be encoded.

LocalForage

LocalForage uses indexedDB or WebSQL if available to greatly increase the size of what can be stored. Just drop it in as a storage (only supported in the client):

import { isServer } from "solid-js/web";
import { makePersisted } from "@solid-primtives/storage";
import localforage from "localforage";

const [state, setState] = makePersisted(createSignal(), {
  storage: !isServer ? localforage : undefined,
});

Keep in mind that it will only run on the client, so unless you have

TauriStorage

Tauri is a lightweight run-time for desktop (and soon also mobile) applications utilizing web front-end frameworks. While it supports localStorage and sessionStorage, it also has its own store plugin with the benefit of improved stability. To use it, install the required modules both on the side of JavaScript and Rust after setting up the project with the help of their command-line interface:

npm run tauri add store

Also, it requires a few permissions in capabilities/default.json:

{
  // other defaults
  "permissions": [
    // other permissions
    "store:allow-get",
    "store:allow-set",
    "store:allow-delete",
    "store:allow-keys",
    "store:allow-clear"
  ]
}

Lastly, initialize the plugin in the setup:

fn main() {
    tauri::Builder::default()
        // initialize store plugin:
        .plugin(tauri_plugin_store::Builder::new().build())
        .run(tauri::generate_context!())
        .expect("error while running tauri application");
}

Once these preparations are finished, tauriStorage(name?: string) can be used as another storage option. To fallback to localStorage if the app does not run within tauri, you can check for window.__TAURI_INTERNALS__:

import { tauriStorage } from "@solid-primitives/storage/tauri";

const storage = window.__TAURI_INTERNALS__ ? tauriStorage() : localStorage;

Object storage

This package also provides a way to create a storage API wrapper for an object called makeObjectStorage(object). This is especially useful as a server fallback if you want to store the data in your user session or database object:

const [state, setState] = createPersisted(createSignal(), {
  storage: globalThis.localStorage ?? makeObjectStorage(session.userState),
});

Multiplexed storages

You may want to persist your state to multiple storages as a fallback solution (e.g. localStorage vs. cookieStorage so it works offline and on the server).

In order to do so, you can use multiplexStorage:

const [mode, setMode] = makePersisted(createSignal("dark"), {
  name: "mode",
  storage: multiplexStorage(localStorage, cookieStorage),
});

If none of your storage APIs is asynchronous, the resulting API is synchronous, otherwise it is async. For the getItem operation, the first storage that returns a valid value will be the source of truth. So you need to await deletion and writing before you can rely on the result in case of asynchronous storages.

Sync API

The storage API has an interesting functionality: if you set an item in one instance of the same page, other instances are notified of the change via the storage event so they can elect to automatically update.

storageSync

With storageSync, you can use exactly this API in order to sync to external updates to the same storage.

const [state, setState] = makePersisted(createSignal(), { sync: storageSync });

messageSync

With messageSync, you can recreate the same functionality for other storages within the client using either the post message API or broadcast channel API. If no argument is given, it is using post message, otherwise provide the broadcast channel as argument

const [state, setState] = makePersisted(createSignal(), {
  storage: customStorage,
  sync: messageSync(),
});

wsSync

With wsSync, you can create your synchronization API based on a web socket connection (either created yourself or by our @solid-primitives/websocket package); this allows synchronization between client and server.

const [state, setState] = makePersisted(createSignal(), { sync: wsSync(makeWs(...)) });

multiplexSync

You can also multiplex different synchronization APIs using multiplexSync:

const [state, setState] = makePersisted(createSignal(), {
  sync: multiplexSync(storageSync, wsSync(ws)),
});

Custom synchronization API

If you want to create your own sync API, you can use the following pattern:

export type PersistenceSyncData = {
  key: string;
  newValue: string | null | undefined;
  timeStamp: number;
  url?: string;
};

export type PersistenceSyncCallback = (data: PersistenceSyncData) => void;

export type PersistenceSyncAPI = [
  /** subscribes to sync */
  subscribe: (subscriber: PersistenceSyncCallback) => void,
  update: (key: string, value: string | null | undefined) => void,
];

You can use APIs like Pusher or a WebRTC data connection to synchronize your state.

Tools

If you want to build your own Storage and don't want to do a .clear() method yourself:

const storageWithClearMethod = addClearMethod(storage_without_clear_method);

If your storage API supports options and you want to add predefined options so it behaves like an API without options, you can add a .withOptions method:

const customStorage = addWithOptionsMethod(storage_supporting_options);
const boundCustomStorage = customStorage.withOptions(myOptions);

Demo

Live Demo - Sources

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md