Is mapDispatch2Props really necessary?

I’ve searched for this topic but none result matched the case I’m going to talk about.

In react-redux, we use mapDispatch2Props to inject access to dispatch into components(containers) like:

// container.js
onSubmit() {
  this.props.addUser(this.state.formData);
}

function mapDispatch2Props(dispatch) {
  return {
    addUser(data) {
      dispatch({ type: ADD_USER, data });
    }
  }
}

However dispatch is actually accessible anywhere as long as you import the store, so we don’t need this injection.

// utils.js
import store from '../store';

export function addUser(data) {
  store.dispatch({ type: ADD_USER, data });
}

// containers.js
import { addUser } from '../utils';

onSubmit() {
  addUser(this.state.formData);
}

I know this seems breaking the “all data should come in as props” rule of React, but importing and using util functions are very common. Say we need to display a timestamp in some specific format:

import { formatTime } from '../utils';

render() {
  return (
    <span>{formatTime(this.props.time)}</span>
  );
}

And this approach prevents your component(container) from being aware of redux stuff. So I wonder if it’s a good replacement of mapDispatch2Props, especially when not taking ownProps.

[timdorr]

No, mDTP isn’t strictly necessary. You’re free to get access to dispatch or bind it to your action creators by other means, but for most it’s a nice convenience. Especially in the object shorthand form.

[markerikson]

Also please see the Redux FAQ entry on why we discourage importing the store directly.