Atomic Updates: _set vs _patch

FractoState gives you surgical control over how your state changes are committed. Understanding the difference between _set and _patch is key to building high-performance applications with meaningful history.

Quick Comparison

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🛠 _set (The Forceful Hammer)

The _set method bypasses the internal deep-equality check. It tells FractoState: "I don't care if the data is the same, I want a new state reference now."

Use Cases:

1. Triggering Side Effects: If you have a useEffect watching a state property and you want it to fire again, even if the value hasn't changed.
2. Explicit History Milestones: When building a "Save" feature where every click must be recorded in the Undo/Redo history as a distinct snapshot.
3. Visual Feedback: Forcing a component to re-mount or play an animation that depends on a state transition.

Example:

// Even if name is already "John", this creates a new history entry
// and triggers all subscribed components to re-render.
ops.self.user.name._set("John");

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_patch (The Smart Shield)

The _patch method is the default recommended way to update state. It performs a deep equality check between the current value and the new one before committing.

Use Cases:

1. High-Frequency Updates: Real-time data like mouse coordinates, scroll positions, or search input fields.
2. Data Synchronization: When receiving updates from a WebSocket or API where the data might be identical to what you already have.
3. Performance Optimization: Preventing expensive React component sub-trees from re-rendering unnecessarily.

Example:

// If category is already "Electronics", FractoState stops here.
// No CPU cycles spent on React rendering or Plugin notifications.
ops.self.filter.category._patch("Electronics");

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Recommendation

• Use _patch by default. It keeps your application fast and your history clean.
• Use _set only when you need the "side-effect" of an update (forcing a render or a history snapshot) regardless of the data content.

Note: Most specific operators like _increment(1), _push(item), or _toggle() internally use the Smart logic (similar to _patch) because their purpose is to change the data.