Redux will execute all subscription callbacks every time an action is dispatched? - redux

Question

Gee, I feel foolish about this, but I have read every part of: http://redux.js.org/ (done the egghead tutorials, and read 4 times the FAQ at: http://redux.js.org/docs/faq/ImmutableData.html
What I did was stub one of my reducers, to always return state, and that is the only reducer being called (checked with breakpoints). Even so, my subscribe event is being called every time the reducer returns state. What Do I not understand? (Action.SetServerStats is being called at a 1Hz rate, and the subscribe is also being called at a 1Hz Rate
BTW the Chrome Redux Extension says thats states are equal, and the React Extension for Chrome with Trace React Updates, is not showing any updates.
I will be glad to remove the question, when someone clues me in. But right now, what I see each each of the reducers being called at 1Hz, and all of them returning the slice of the store that they got (state).
So do I not understand subscribe, and that it returns every time even when the store tree does not get modified (and it is up to react-redux to do shallow compare to figure out what changed if any?)
create store & subscribe
let store = createStore(reducer, initialState, composeWithDevTools(applyMiddleware(thunk)))
store.subscribe(() => console.log("current store: ", JSON.stringify(store.getState(), null, 4)))
reducers.js
import A from './actionTypes'
import { combineReducers } from 'redux'
export const GLVersion = (state = '', action) => {
switch (action.type) {
case A.SetGLVersion:
return action.payload
default:
return state
}
}
export const ServerConfig = (state = {}, action) => {
switch (action.type) {
case A.SetServerConfig: {
let { ServerPort, UserID, PortNumber, WWWUrl, SourcePath, FMEPath } = action.payload
let p = { ServerPort, UserID, PortNumber, WWWUrl, SourcePath, FMEPath }
return p
}
default:
return state
}
}
export const ServerStats = (state = {}, action) => {
switch (action.type) {
case A.SetServerStats:
return state
// let { WatsonInstalled, WatsonRunning, FMERunning, JobsDirSize } = action.payload
// let s = { WatsonInstalled, WatsonRunning, FMERunning, JobsDirSize }
// return s
default:
return state
}
}
export default combineReducers({ GLVersion, ServerConfig, ServerStats })

Answer 1

Correct. Redux will execute all subscription callbacks every time an action is dispatched, even if the state is not updated in any way. It is up to the subscription callbacks to then do something meaningful, such as calling getState() and checking to see if some specific part of the state has changed.
React-Redux is an example of that. Each instance of a connected component class is a separate subscriber to the store. Every time an action is dispatched, all of the wrapper components generated by connect will first check to see if the root state value has changed, and if so, run the mapStateToProps functions they were given to see if the output of mapState has changed at all. If that mapState output changes, then the wrapper component will re-render your "real" component.
You might want to read my blog post Practical Redux, Part 6: Connected Lists, Forms, and Performance, which discusses several important aspects related to Redux performance. My new post Idiomatic Redux: The Tao of Redux, Part 1 - Implementation and Intent also goes into detail on how several parts of Redux actually work.