Date library dependency in v8

[gpbl]

DayPicker relies on some date manipulation functions to work. Until v8 I've been maintaining a custom set of utilities to keep the bundle size small.

I underestimated the difficulties working with dates and other abstractions required to support localization, so I decided to switch to date-fns.

This choice is raising some valid concerns in the community, which I would like to collect here.

References:

• @bengry comment: React DayPicker 8 #942 (comment)
• React DayPicker 8 #942 (comment)
• React DayPicker 8 #942 (comment)

[bengry]

@gpbl do you know what functions v8 will need? I mean the logical operators it needs (e.g. adding N days to a given day). This list can then be mapped to library functions (e.g. addDays in the aforementioned example for date-fns or moment(date).add(N, 'days') for moment), then we can see how much of a bundle size increase we're getting from date-fns (or any other tree-shakeable library), given that only these functions are included in the bundle. My guess is that it'll be pretty small when using a tree-shakeable library.

Other options I can think of:

• Decide and use some date library with its own implementation for Date (e.g. moment, Luxon, dayjs), then expose this as the public API from react-day-picker.
  Personally I don't like this, since it ties down apps to a specific date library, or requires them to include a library that they don't need other than for react-day-picker and convert between the chosen library's type and their own usage in the rest of the app.
• Use date-io, as mentioned here by @ denisborovikov.
  Again, personally I don't think this is a good direction, as I explained here and here. Basically, while it doesn't limit the app's to any given library, and now react-day-picker can work with anything that has an adapter for date-io, it removes tree-shakeability, and as mentioned above - I think the bundle size increase when using date-fns will be pretty small.

[gpbl]

I think the main issue here are localization-based calculations (eg first day of the week). I’d go with date-fns and study the problem with a lower priority. There are many options out there! I really want to push date-fns, it is good for the ecosystem.

Different approaches can be tried after the release. But i’d better discuss real use cases like yours first...

[bengry]

What do you mean by "real use cases" in this context?

I also think date-fns is a safe and good choice, especially since it uses native Dates. The only concern is that if you drop it later then it'll be a breaking change. Not too big probably, but one nonetheless.

[dmtrKovalenko]

Interestingly, I am the author of date-io.
Just today we discussed with some other libraries authors about splitting date-io into tree-shakable functions for calculations and a class for formatting and everything that is related to the localization, like days of weeks month and so on.

The main problem of date-fns is that if you will include just 2 functions format and parse. Which are required in case of any datepicker you will something around 30kb, just like here :)
All the other date-fns functions are much-much smaller

P.S. I am not trying to force you to use date-io :D

[bengry]

@dmtrKovalenko in the case where date-io is tree-shakeable, it would make more sense to use it in this project, but you're still left with the issue of an additional dependency "for nothing" (in the case eyes of the library itself). Also, I'd like to mention that react-date-picker does not have to include the format and parse functions of date-fns. At the end of the day, the default display in the Calendar are pretty "raw", and formatting can be done by the application itself currently when using the renderDay prop, and the same goes for other ones like it. This way, locale is a non-issue for the library until faced with a non-default rendering, which even then may be a non-issue if you're using the browser's locale, or have support for the Intl API in your supported browsers (or polyfilled it anyway).

Note that I haven't referenced the <DayPickerInput /> component though, as it may need these functions, or functions like them. The short answer there is that even in that case you could just pass them as [optional] props. The longer answer is that many use-cases of this library don't even use <DatPickerInput /> in the first place, and it was supposed to be removed in v8 originally AFAIK.

[dmtrKovalenko]

The main problem is how we can share them to be replaceable by user and get rid of object with functions. 🤷‍♂️ I don’t know

[bengry]

You can always supply them via props, I don't see anything wrong with that.

<DayPicker renderDay={date => <div>{date.getDate()}</div>} ...	/>

If you want to use the default renderer you could implement a pattern similar to what office-ui-fabric-react uses:

<DayPicker renderDay={(date, defaultRender) => defaultRender(date.getDate())} ...	/>

where defaultRender accepts a ReactChild (essentially JSX | string | number) to render using the default render method that would've been used directly if renderDay wouldn't have been supplied. This lets you format the Date however you want, including localization.

@dmtrKovalenko I don't see any reason for an object with functions here, but I'm happy to learn why you think one is needed in the first place :).

[dmtrKovalenko]

The main idea of the date-io is that user can import the adapter, one time pass it as a prop and any component will work out of the box

import DateFnsAdapter from 'yourLib/date-fns'

<DatePicker adapter={new DateFnsAdapter({ locale: ruLocale })} /> 
// it doesn't matter this can be a fabric function 
<DatePicker adapter={makeDateFnsAdapter({ locale: ruLocale })} /> 

But how we can populate it as a tree shakable function? Only one way I can imagine -- each consumer of date-io will need to reexport needed functions as objects

import { addDays, format, parse } from '@date-io/date-fns'

export default { addDays, format, parse } 

And then in the code use them exactly like date-fns functions. But I don't think that it worth it, personally I don't like date-fns in the javascript environment :) (In ReasonML - it's the best)

So I think that the best way to handle it would be to split out the date-io into several independent classes or functions for Formatting, Parsing and Calculations.

[bengry]

You can always utilize React's Context in this case:

const dateTimeFormat = new Intl.DateTimeFormat();
<DayPickerFormattingProvider format={dateTimeFormat.format)>
  <DayPicker /> {/* this can be nested anywhere inside the Provider, so you could even wrap your whole App with a Provider and forget about it if you want to */}
</DayPickerFormattingProvider>

I personally don't like the usage of Context for this very much. I'd much rather have a <DayPicker />-wrapper component within the app's project that just gives that adapter/formatter/whatever else to the library's <DayPicker /> and then use only that component from that point forward. I think this is what a lot of other apps are doing anyway, to customize the library's component in the way they need it, in a way that will then be consistent throughout their app.

So I still don't see a reason for using date-io in this case.

[dmtrKovalenko]

In case I am using Luxon for formatting and timezone management - I don't want to see 44kb of date-fns in my bundle. I`d better include 1.6kb of date-io adapter.
Moreover, if my application is multi-locale this size will be only bigger

[bengry]

@dmtrKovalenko how is passing in props/using React Context not solving this issue? This way there's either no usage of date-fns in react-day-picker, or a very minimal one (just for addDays and the like, no formatting or anything like that).

[dmtrKovalenko]

I think we are talking about different things :)
If you want we can continue discussion in twitter or somewhere.
Let’s not generate white noise in the issue

[hornetDC]

Is it possible to somehow use v8 without date-fns? We are using dayjs in our project, v7's formatDate and parseDate props are very convenient. I don't want to bring extra dependency.

[dmtrKovalenko]

@vvav3 Only if maintainers will choose the date-library-independent way of date library.

P.S date-io can be an option :D

[scalisi]

We are using dayjs in our project, v7's formatDate and parseDate props are very convenient. I don't want to bring extra dependency.

We also use Day.js with React Day Picker, and we chose them both in part because of their small size and lack of dependencies.

[TomBeckett]

@gpbl I just updated to beta today (ironically hoping for a smaller bundle size as per BundlePhobia).

I'm in the same situation as above - using DayJS with DayPicker 7. Did this ever get resolved? Can we use DayJS as a replacement and remove date-fns?

[gpbl]

Since I have no time for that, I have no plan removing the date-fns dependency or switch to other date libraries.
DayPicker was working with a custom date library until v7 and I've spent countless nights trying to get them working correctly. Waste of time, they were always bugged. Dates and localization are difficult.

Here the options I've considered:

• a proxy to other date libraries. This is a difficult task, as we cannot detect which library is peer-installed. Open to ideas!
• bundle the date-fns functions directly in the package.
  • This would remove the peer dependency and probably let us control the tree shaking part, but users adopting date-fns already would have a duplicate set of functions.
• write a date library just for DayPicker, but I'm not sure why we should reinvent the wheel again.

Those are the functions we are using now from date-fns:

addDays, addMonths, addWeeks, addYears, differenceInCalendarDays, differenceInCalendarMonths, endOfMonth, endOfWeek, getUnixTime, getWeek, getWeeksInMonth, isAfter, isBefore, isDate, isSameDay, isSameMonth, isSameYear, parse, setMonth, setYear, startOfDay, startOfMonth, startOfWeek, startOfYear

• these functions must be tested and maintained during the years
• we must consider also the compatibility with older browsers
• the implementation should consume significantly less bytes to justify the extra work

Maybe other developers could join the maintainers to help reducing the size of the bundle?

[goppi0]

We are quite apprehensive upgrading to v8 as we also use dayjs and due to the size don't want to add date-fns. Has anything happened on this front since the last comment?

[gpbl]

Hi here, resurrecting this old thread as we made some progress.

Yes - DayPicker still requires date-fns as peer dependency. I know this is a burden for some - there are options for a wrapper between date libraries, but at the moment I don't have the time to spend on this part.

The goal could be actually replace date-fns with Intl API (or is it now Temporal?), so to remove the need of any peer dependency.

In version 9, I could extract the date-fns utilities used by DayPicker into its own dateLib module.

The module can be replaced by passing dateLib to the props. If we want to remove the dependency, there are ~30 exports that need to be replaced with a Intl based lib. (I have no idea yet how would Intl work with Jalali, UTC, and the various locales...)

import * as intlDateLib from 'a-lib-using-intl';

<DayPicker dateLib={intlDateLib} />

This sort of dependency injection allows DayPicker to support Jalali calendar and UTC dates, thanks to some date-fns features.

In conclusion, removing date-fns dependency requires a consistent effort and it is not on my current agenda. If you don't have the time to contribute to DayPicker and you are still interested on this feature, please remember even a 1$ small donation really helps supporting this project.