Is it an anti pattern to dispatch actions from an action file that are subscribed to from a different reducer file?

Question

Usually in my Redux projects I have action and reducer files that come in pairs. So in my actions folder I will have a posts.js and in my reducers folder I will also have a posts.js. The posts action file usually just dispatch action types that are subscribed to in the posts reducer file.

But now I need to dispatch an action type from the posts action file that is subscribed to from the authors reducer file. Is this okay or considered an anti-pattern?

Answer 1

That isn't anti-pattern at all. It's good code-reusability and especially useful for error-handling.

Consider the following example:

posts.js

import { GET_POSTS } from "./actions/types"
import { setErrors } from "./actions/errors"
import axios from "axios"

export const getPosts = () => {
   return (dispatch) => {
       axios.get("/api/posts")
            .then((res) => {
                dispatch({
                   type: GET_POSTS,
                   payload: res.data
                })
            })
            .catch((errors) => {
                dispatch(setErrors(errors.response.data))
            }
   }
}

errors.js

const setErrors = (errors) => {
   return {
      type: SET_ERRORS,
      payload: errors
   }
}

So instead of defining a completely new post-related errors action inside posts.js, it makes sense to just import an existing one that is subscribed to your errors-reducer (if any). The same could be said about using your author and post actions together.