useController()

Controller provides type-safe methods to access and dispatch actions to the store.

For instance fetch, invalidate, and setResponse

<script setup lang="ts">
  import { useController } from '@data-client/vue';

  const props = defineProps<{ id: string }>();
  const ctrl = useController();

  const handleRefresh = async () => {
    await ctrl.fetch(MyResource.get, { id: props.id });
  };

  const handleSuspend = async () => {
    await ctrl.invalidate(MyResource.get, { id: props.id });
  };

  const handleLogout = () => {
    ctrl.resetEntireStore();
  };
</script>

useController() must be called inside <script setup> (or setup()), and requires the DataClientPlugin to be installed. The same Controller is also available in templates and the Options API as $dataClient.

Examples

Form submission

fetch returns the denormalized response, matching useSuspense()'s return type. This allows using Entity methods like pk().

CreatePost.vue

<script setup lang="ts">
  import { useController } from '@data-client/vue';
  import { useRouter } from 'vue-router';
  import { PostResource } from './PostResource';

  const ctrl = useController();
  const router = useRouter();

  const handleSubmit = async (e: Event) => {
    e.preventDefault();
    const post = await ctrl.fetch(
      PostResource.getList.push,
      new FormData(e.target as HTMLFormElement),
    );
    post.title;
    post.computedField;
    router.push(`/post/${post.pk()}`);
  };
</script>

<template>
  <form @submit="handleSubmit"><!-- fields --></form>
</template>

Direct entity update

Use set for immediate updates without network requests. Supports functional updates to avoid race conditions.

VoteButton.vue

<script setup lang="ts">
  import { useController } from '@data-client/vue';
  import { Article } from './Article';

  const props = defineProps<{ articleId: string }>();
  const ctrl = useController();

  const vote = () =>
    ctrl.set(Article, { id: props.articleId }, article => ({
      ...article,
      votes: article.votes + 1,
    }));
</script>

<template>
  <button @click="vote">Vote</button>
</template>

Invalidate after mutation

Force refetch of related data using invalidate or expireAll.

ClearUserCache.vue

<script setup lang="ts">
  import { useController } from '@data-client/vue';
  import { UserResource } from './UserResource';

  const ctrl = useController();

  const handleClear = async () => {
    // invalidate() causes suspense; expireAll() refetches silently
    ctrl.expireAll(UserResource.get);
    ctrl.expireAll(UserResource.getList);
  };
</script>

<template>
  <button @click="handleClear">Refresh user data</button>
</template>

tip

For better performance and consistency, prefer including side effect updates in mutation responses.

Prefetching

Use fetchIfStale to prefetch without overfetching fresh data.

ArticleLink.vue

<script setup lang="ts">
  import { useController } from '@data-client/vue';
  import { ArticleResource } from './ArticleResource';

  const props = defineProps<{ id: string }>();
  const ctrl = useController();

  const prefetch = () =>
    ctrl.fetchIfStale(ArticleResource.get, { id: props.id });
</script>

<template>
  <RouterLink :to="`/article/${id}`" @mouseenter="prefetch">
    Read more
  </RouterLink>
</template>

Websocket updates

Populate cache with external data via set.

useWebsocket.ts

import { onMounted, onUnmounted } from 'vue';
import { useController } from '@data-client/vue';

export function useWebsocket(url: string) {
  const ctrl = useController();
  let ws: WebSocket;

  onMounted(() => {
    ws = new WebSocket(url);
    ws.onmessage = event => {
      const { entity, args, data } = JSON.parse(event.data);
      ctrl.set(EntityMap[entity], args, data);
    };
  });
  onUnmounted(() => ws?.close());
}

warning

For production use, implement a Manager for data streams rather than component-level lifecycle hooks. Managers handle connection lifecycle globally and work with SSR.

Todo App

More Demos