Can I mapDispatchToProps without mapStateToProps in Redux?

Question

I am breaking apart Redux' todo example to try to understand it. I read that mapDispatchToProps allows you to map dispatch actions as props, so I thought of rewriting addTodo.js to use mapDispatchToProps instead of calling dispatch(addTodo()). I called it addingTodo(). Something like this:

import React from 'react';
import {connect} from 'react-redux';
import addTodo from '../actions';

let AddTodo = ({addingTodo}) => {
  let input;
  return (
      <div>
        <form onSubmit={e => {
          e.preventDefault()
          if (!input.value.trim()) {
            return
          }
          addingTodo(input.value)
          input.value = ""
        }}>
          <input ref={node => {
            input = node
          }} />
          <button type="submit">Submit</button>
        </form>
      </div>
  )
}

const mapDispatchToProps = {
  addingTodo: addTodo
}

AddTodo = connect(
  mapDispatchToProps
)(AddTodo)

export default AddTodo

However, when I run the app, I get this error: Error: Invalid value of type object for mapStateToProps argument when connecting component AddTodo.. I never used mapStateToProps to begin with on AddTodo component, so I was not sure what was wrong. My gut feeling says that connect() expects mapStateToProps to precede mapDispatchToProps.

The working original looks like this:

import React from 'react';
import {connect} from 'react-redux';
import addTodo from '../actions';

let AddTodo = ({dispatch}) => {
  let input;
  return (
      <div>
        <form onSubmit={e => {
          e.preventDefault()
          if (!input.value.trim()) {
            return
          }
          dispatch(addTodo(input.value))
          input.value = ""
        }}>
          <input ref={node => {
            input = node
          }} />
          <button type="submit">Submit</button>
        </form>
      </div>
  )
}

AddTodo = connect()(AddTodo)

export default AddTodo

Complete repo can be found here.

So my question is, is it possible to do mapDispatchToProps without mapStateToProps? Is what I am trying to do an acceptable practice - if not, why not?

Answer 1

Yes, you can. Just pass null as first argument:

AddTodo = connect(
    null,
    mapDispatchToProps
)(AddTodo)

Yes, it's not just acceptable practice, it's recommended way to trigger actions. Using mapDispatchToProps allows to hide the fact of using redux inside your react components