Let's see the main features of Reselect library,
Selectors can compute derived data, allowing Redux to store the minimal possible state.
Selectors are efficient. A selector is not recomputed unless one of its arguments changes.
Selectors are composable. They can be used as input to other selectors.
Let's take calculations and different amounts of a shipment order with the simplified usage of Reselect:
import { createSelector } from 'reselect'
const shopItemsSelector = state => state.shop.items
const taxPercentSelector = state => state.shop.taxPercent
const subtotalSelector = createSelector(
shopItemsSelector,
items => items.reduce((acc, item) => acc + item.value, 0)
)
const taxSelector = createSelector(
subtotalSelector,
taxPercentSelector,
(subtotal, taxPercent) => subtotal * (taxPercent / 100)
)
export const totalSelector = createSelector(
subtotalSelector,
taxSelector,
(subtotal, tax) => ({ total: subtotal + tax })
)
let exampleState = {
shop: {
taxPercent: 8,
items: [
{ name: 'apple', value: 1.20 },
{ name: 'orange', value: 0.95 },
]
}
}
console.log(subtotalSelector(exampleState)) // 2.15
console.log(taxSelector(exampleState)) // 0.172
console.log(totalSelector(exampleState)) // { total: 2.116 }
No, statics
only works with React.createClass()
:
someComponent= React.createClass({
statics: {
someMethod: function() {
// ..
}
}
})
But you can write statics inside ES6+ classes as below,
class Component extends React.Component {
static propTypes = {
// ...
}
static someMethod() {
// ...
}
}
or writing them outside class as below,
class Component extends React.Component {
....
}
Component.propTypes = {...}
Component.someMethod = function(){....}
Redux can be used as a data store for any UI layer. The most common usage is with React and React Native, but there are bindings available for Angular, Angular 2, Vue, Mithril, and more. Redux simply provides a subscription mechanism which can be used by any other code.
Redux is originally written in ES6 and transpiled for production into ES5 with Webpack and Babel. You should be able to use it regardless of your JavaScript build process. Redux also offers a UMD build that can be used directly without any build process at all.
You need to add enableReinitialize : true
setting.
const InitializeFromStateForm = reduxForm({
form: 'initializeFromState',
enableReinitialize : true
})(UserEdit)
If your initialValues
prop gets updated, your form will update too.
You can use oneOfType()
method of PropTypes
.
For example, the height property can be defined with either string
or number
type as below:
Component.propTypes = {
size: PropTypes.oneOfType([
PropTypes.string,
PropTypes.number
])
}
You can import SVG directly as component instead of loading it as a file. This feature is available with react-scripts@2.0.0
and higher.
import { ReactComponent as Logo } from './logo.svg'
const App = () => (
<div>
{/* Logo is an actual react component */}
<Logo />
</div>
)
Note: Don't forget about the curly braces in the import.
If the ref callback is defined as an inline function, it will get called twice during updates, first with null and then again with the DOM element. This is because a new instance of the function is created with each render, so React needs to clear the old ref and set up the new one.
class UserForm extends Component {
handleSubmit = () => {
console.log("Input Value is: ", this.input.value)
}
render () {
return (
<form onSubmit={this.handleSubmit}>
<input
type='text'
ref={(input) => this.input = input} /> // Access DOM input in handle submit
<button type='submit'>Submit</button>
</form>
)
}
}
But our expectation is for the ref callback to get called once, when the component mounts. One quick fix is to use the ES7 class property syntax to define the function
class UserForm extends Component {
handleSubmit = () => {
console.log("Input Value is: ", this.input.value)
}
setSearchInput = (input) => {
this.input = input
}
render () {
return (
<form onSubmit={this.handleSubmit}>
<input
type='text'
ref={this.setSearchInput} /> // Access DOM input in handle submit
<button type='submit'>Submit</button>
</form>
)
}
}
Note: In React v16.3,
The concept of render hijacking is the ability to control what a component will output from another component. It means that you decorate your component by wrapping it into a Higher-Order component. By wrapping, you can inject additional props or make other changes, which can cause changing logic of rendering. It does not actually enable hijacking, but by using HOC you make your component behave differently.
There are two main ways of implementing HOCs in React.
But they follow different approaches for manipulating the WrappedComponent.
Props Proxy
In this approach, the render method of the HOC returns a React Element of the type of the WrappedComponent. We also pass through the props that the HOC receives, hence the name Props Proxy.
function ppHOC(WrappedComponent) {
return class PP extends React.Component {
render() {
return <WrappedComponent {...this.props}/>
}
}
}
Inheritance Inversion
In this approach, the returned HOC class (Enhancer) extends the WrappedComponent. It is called Inheritance Inversion because instead of the WrappedComponent extending some Enhancer class, it is passively extended by the Enhancer. In this way the relationship between them seems inverse.
function iiHOC(WrappedComponent) {
return class Enhancer extends WrappedComponent {
render() {
return super.render()
}
}
}
You should be passing the numbers via curly braces() where as strings in quotes
React.render(<User age={30} department={"IT"} />, document.getElementById('container'));
It is up to the developer's decision, i.e., it is developer's job to determine what kinds of state make up your application, and where each piece of state should live. Some users prefer to keep every single piece of data in Redux, to maintain a fully serializable and controlled version of their application at all times. Others prefer to keep non-critical or UI state, such as “is this dropdown currently open”, inside a component's internal state.
Below are the thumb rules to determine what kind of data should be put into Redux
React creates a service worker for you without any configuration by default. The service worker is a web API that helps you cache your assets and other files so that when the user is offline or on a slow network, he/she can still see results on the screen, as such, it helps you build a better user experience, that's what you should know about service worker for now. It's all about adding offline capabilities to your site.
import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import App from './App';
import registerServiceWorker from './registerServiceWorker';
ReactDOM.render(<App />, document.getElementById('root'));
registerServiceWorker();
Class components can be restricted from re-rendering when their input props are the same using PureComponent or shouldComponentUpdate. Now you can do the same with function components by wrapping them in React.memo.
const MyComponent = React.memo(function MyComponent(props) {
/* only rerenders if props change */
});
The React.lazy
function lets you render a dynamic import as a regular component. It will automatically load the bundle containing the OtherComponent
when the component gets rendered. This must return a Promise which resolves to a module with a default export containing a React component.
const OtherComponent = React.lazy(() => import('./OtherComponent'));
function MyComponent() {
return (
<div>
<OtherComponent />
</div>
);
}
Note:
React.lazy
and Suspense
is not yet available for server-side rendering. If you want to do code-splitting in a server rendered app, we still recommend React Loadable.
You can compare the current value of the state with an existing state value and decide whether to rerender the page or not. If the values are the same then you need to return null to stop re-rendering otherwise return the latest state value.
For example, the user profile information is conditionally rendered as follows,
getUserProfile = user => {
const latestAddress = user.address;
this.setState(state => {
if (state.address === latestAddress) {
return null;
} else {
return { title: latestAddress };
}
});
};
Arrays: Unlike older releases, you don't need to make sure render method return a single element in React16. You are able to return multiple sibling elements without a wrapping element by returning an array.
For example, let us take the below list of developers,
const ReactJSDevs = () => {
return [
<li key="1">John</li>,
<li key="2">Jackie</li>,
<li key="3">Jordan</li>
];
}
You can also merge this array of items in another array component.
const JSDevs = () => {
return (
<ul>
<li>Brad</li>
<li>Brodge</li>
<ReactJSDevs/>
<li>Brandon</li>
</ul>
);
}
Strings and Numbers: You can also return string and number type from the render method.
render() {
return 'Welcome to ReactJS questions';
}
// Number
render() {
return 2018;
}
React Class Components can be made much more concise using the class field declarations. You can initialize the local state without using the constructor and declare class methods by using arrow functions without the extra need to bind them.
Let's take a counter example to demonstrate class field declarations for state without using constructor and methods without binding,
class Counter extends Component {
state = { value: 0 };
handleIncrement = () => {
this.setState(prevState => ({
value: prevState.value + 1
}));
};
handleDecrement = () => {
this.setState(prevState => ({
value: prevState.value - 1
}));
};
render() {
return (
<div>
{this.state.value}
<button onClick={this.handleIncrement}>+</button>
<button onClick={this.handleDecrement}>-</button>
</div>
)
}
}
Hooks is a special function (introduced as a new feature in React 16.8) that lets you use state and other React features without writing a class.
Let's see an example of useState hook:
import { useState } from 'react';
function Example() {
// Declare a new state variable, which we'll call "count"
const [count, setCount] = useState(0);
return (
<div>
<p>You clicked {count} times</p>
<button onClick={() => setCount(count + 1)}>
Click me
</button>
</div>
);
}
Note: Hooks can be used inside an existing function component.
You need to follow two rules in order to use hooks,
React team released an ESLint plugin called eslint-plugin-react-hooks that enforces these two rules. You can add this plugin to your project using the below command,
npm install eslint-plugin-react-hooks@next
And apply the below config in your ESLint config file,
// Your ESLint configuration
{
"plugins": [
// ...
"react-hooks"
],
"rules": {
// ...
"react-hooks/rules-of-hooks": "error"
}
}
Note: This plugin is intended to use in Create React App by default.
Below are the major differences between Flux and Redux
Flux | Redux |
---|---|
State is mutable | State is immutable |
The Store contains both state and change logic | The Store and change logic are separate |
There are multiple stores exist | There is only one store exist |
All the stores are disconnected and flat | Single store with hierarchical reducers |
It has a singleton dispatcher | There is no concept of dispatcher |
React components subscribe to the store | Container components uses connect function |
Below are the main benefits of React Router V4 module,
<BrowserRouter>
) which wraps specific child router components(<Route>
).<BrowserRouter>
component.The componentDidCatch lifecycle method is invoked after an error has been thrown by a descendant component. The method receives two parameters,
The method structure would be as follows
componentDidCatch(error, info)
Below are the cases in which error boundaries doesn't work,
Error boundaries do not catch errors inside event handlers.
React doesn’t need error boundaries to recover from errors in event handlers. Unlike the render method and lifecycle methods, the event handlers don’t happen during rendering. So if they throw, React still knows what to display on the screen.
If you need to catch an error inside an event handler, use the regular JavaScript try / catch statement:
class MyComponent extends React.Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props);
this.state = { error: null };
this.handleClick = this.handleClick.bind(this);
}
handleClick() {
try {
// Do something that could throw
} catch (error) {
this.setState({ error });
}
}
render() {
if (this.state.error) {
return <h1>Caught an error.</h1>
}
return <button onClick={this.handleClick}>Click Me</button>
}
}
Note that the above example is demonstrating regular JavaScript behavior and doesn’t use error boundaries.
Try catch block works with imperative code whereas error boundaries are meant for declarative code to render on the screen.
For example, the try catch block used for below imperative code
try {
showButton();
} catch (error) {
// ...
}
Whereas error boundaries wrap declarative code as below,
<ErrorBoundary>
<MyComponent />
</ErrorBoundary>
So if an error occurs in a componentDidUpdate method caused by a setState somewhere deep in the tree, it will still correctly propagate to the closest error boundary.
In React 16, errors that were not caught by any error boundary will result in unmounting of the whole React component tree. The reason behind this decision is that it is worse to leave corrupted UI in place than to completely remove it. For example, it is worse for a payments app to display a wrong amount than to render nothing.
The granularity of error boundaries usage is up to the developer based on project needs. You can follow either of these approaches,
Apart from error messages and javascript stack, React16 will display the component stack trace with file names and line numbers using error boundary concept.
For example, BuggyCounter component displays the component stack trace as below,
The render()
method is the only required method in a class component. i.e, All methods other than render method are optional for a class component.
Below are the list of following types used and return from render method,
<div/>
and user defined elements.The constructor is mainly used for two purposes,
constructor(props) {
super(props);
// Don't call this.setState() here!
this.state = { counter: 0 };
this.handleClick = this.handleClick.bind(this);
}
No, it is not mandatory. i.e, If you don’t initialize state and you don’t bind methods, you don’t need to implement a constructor for your React component.
The defaultProps are defined as a property on the component class to set the default props for the class. This is used for undefined props, but not for null props.
For example, let us create color default prop for the button component,
class MyButton extends React.Component {
// ...
}
MyButton.defaultProps = {
color: 'red'
};
If props.color
is not provided then it will set the default value to 'red'. i.e, Whenever you try to access the color prop it uses default value
render() {
return <MyButton /> ; // props.color will be set to red
}
Note: If you provide null value then it remains null value.
You should not call setState()
in componentWillUnmount()
because once a component instance is unmounted, it will never be mounted again.
This lifecycle method is invoked after an error has been thrown by a descendant component. It receives the error that was thrown as a parameter and should return a value to update state.
The signature of the lifecycle method is as follows,
static getDerivedStateFromError(error)
Let us take error boundary use case with the above lifecycle method for demonstration purpose,
class ErrorBoundary extends React.Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props);
this.state = { hasError: false };
}
static getDerivedStateFromError(error) {
// Update state so the next render will show the fallback UI.
return { hasError: true };
}
render() {
if (this.state.hasError) {
// You can render any custom fallback UI
return <h1>Something went wrong.</h1>;
}
return this.props.children;
}
}
An update can be caused by changes to props or state. The below methods are called in the following order when a component is being re-rendered.
Below methods are called when there is an error during rendering, in a lifecycle method, or in the constructor of any child component.
The displayName string is used in debugging messages. Usually, you don’t need to set it explicitly because it’s inferred from the name of the function or class that defines the component. You might want to set it explicitly if you want to display a different name for debugging purposes or when you create a higher-order component.
For example, To ease debugging, choose a display name that communicates that it’s the result of a withSubscription HOC.
function withSubscription(WrappedComponent) {
class WithSubscription extends React.Component {/* ... */}
WithSubscription.displayName = `WithSubscription(${getDisplayName(WrappedComponent)})`;
return WithSubscription;
}
function getDisplayName(WrappedComponent) {
return WrappedComponent.displayName || WrappedComponent.name || 'Component';
}
React supports all popular browsers, including Internet Explorer 9 and above, although some polyfills are required for older browsers such as IE 9 and IE 10. If you use es5-shim and es5-sham polyfill then it even support old browsers that doesn't support ES5 methods.
This method is available from react-dom package and it removes a mounted React component from the DOM and clean up its event handlers and state. If no component was mounted in the container, calling this function does nothing. Returns true if a component was unmounted and false if there was no component to unmount.
The method signature would be as follows,
ReactDOM.unmountComponentAtNode(container)
Code-Splitting is a feature supported by bundlers like Webpack and Browserify which can create multiple bundles that can be dynamically loaded at runtime. The react project supports code splitting via dynamic import() feature.
For example, in the below code snippets, it will make moduleA.js and all its unique dependencies as a separate chunk that only loads after the user clicks the 'Load' button. moduleA.js
const moduleA = 'Hello';
export { moduleA };
App.js
import React, { Component } from 'react';
class App extends Component {
handleClick = () => {
import('./moduleA')
.then(({ moduleA }) => {
// Use moduleA
})
.catch(err => {
// Handle failure
});
};
render() {
return (
<div>
<button onClick={this.handleClick}>Load</button>
</div>
);
}
}
export default App;
The StrictMode will be helpful in the below cases:
The Fragments declared with the explicit jsx<React.Fragment>
syntax may have keys. The general use case is mapping a collection to an array of fragments as below,
function Glossary(props) {
return (
<dl>
{props.items.map(item => (
// Without the `key`, React will fire a key warning
<React.Fragment key={item.id}>
<dt>{item.term}</dt>
<dd>{item.description}</dd>
</React.Fragment>
))}
</dl>
);
}
Note: key is the only attribute that can be passed to Fragment. In the future, there might be a support for additional attributes, such as event handlers.
As of React 16, both standard or custom DOM attributes are fully supported. Since React components often take both custom and DOM-related props, React uses the camelCase convention just like the DOM APIs.
Let us take few props with respect to standard HTML attributes,
<div tabIndex="-1" /> // Just like node.tabIndex DOM API
<div className="Button" /> // Just like node.className DOM API
<input readOnly={true} /> // Just like node.readOnly DOM API
These props work similarly to the corresponding HTML attributes, with the exception of the special cases. It also support all SVG attributes.
Higher-order components come with a few caveats apart from its benefits. Below are the few listed in an order,
render() {
// A new version of EnhancedComponent is created on every render
// EnhancedComponent1 !== EnhancedComponent2
const EnhancedComponent = enhance(MyComponent);
// That causes the entire subtree to unmount/remount each time!
return <EnhancedComponent />;
}
The above code impacts on performance by remounting a component that causes the state of that component and all of its children to be lost. Instead, apply HOCs outside the component definition so that the resulting component is created only once.
// Define a static method
WrappedComponent.staticMethod = function() {/*...*/}
// Now apply a HOC
const EnhancedComponent = enhance(WrappedComponent);
// The enhanced component has no static method
typeof EnhancedComponent.staticMethod === 'undefined' // true
You can overcome this by copying the methods onto the container before returning it,
function enhance(WrappedComponent) {
class Enhance extends React.Component {/*...*/}
// Must know exactly which method(s) to copy :(
Enhance.staticMethod = WrappedComponent.staticMethod;
return Enhance;
}
React.forwardRef accepts a render function as parameter and DevTools uses this function to determine what to display for the ref forwarding component.
For example, If you don't name the render function or not using displayName property then it will appear as ”ForwardRef” in the DevTools,
const WrappedComponent = React.forwardRef((props, ref) => {
return <LogProps {...props} forwardedRef={ref} />;
});
But If you name the render function then it will appear as ”ForwardRef(myFunction)”
const WrappedComponent = React.forwardRef(
function myFunction(props, ref) {
return <LogProps {...props} forwardedRef={ref} />;
}
);
As an alternative, You can also set displayName property for forwardRef function,
function logProps(Component) {
class LogProps extends React.Component {
// ...
}
function forwardRef(props, ref) {
return <LogProps {...props} forwardedRef={ref} />;
}
// Give this component a more helpful display name in DevTools.
// e.g. "ForwardRef(logProps(MyComponent))"
const name = Component.displayName || Component.name;
forwardRef.displayName = `logProps(${name})`;
return React.forwardRef(forwardRef);
}
If you pass no value for a prop, it defaults to true. This behavior is available so that it matches the behavior of HTML.
For example, below expressions are equivalent,
<MyInput autocomplete />
<MyInput autocomplete={true} />
Note: It is not recommended to use this approach because it can be confused with the ES6 object shorthand (example, {name}
which is short for {name: name}
)
Next.js is a popular and lightweight framework for static and server‑rendered applications built with React. It also provides styling and routing solutions. Below are the major features provided by NextJS,
You can pass event handlers and other functions as props to child components. It can be used in child component as below,
<button onClick={this.handleClick}>
Yes, You can use. It is often the easiest way to pass parameters to callback functions. But you need to optimize the performance while using it.
class Foo extends Component {
handleClick() {
console.log('Click happened');
}
render() {
return <button onClick={() => this.handleClick()}>Click Me</button>;
}
}
Note: Using an arrow function in render method creates a new function each time the component renders, which may have performance implications
If you use an event handler such as onClick or onScroll and want to prevent the callback from being fired too quickly, then you can limit the rate at which callback is executed. This can be achieved in the below possible ways,
React DOM escapes any values embedded in JSX before rendering them. Thus it ensures that you can never inject anything that’s not explicitly written in your application. Everything is converted to a string before being rendered.
For example, you can embed user input as below,
const name = response.potentiallyMaliciousInput;
const element = <h1>{name}</h1>;
This way you can prevent XSS(Cross-site-scripting) attacks in the application.
You can update UI(represented by rendered element) by passing the newly created element to ReactDOM's render method.
For example, lets take a ticking clock example, where it updates the time by calling render method multiple times,
function tick() {
const element = (
<div>
<h1>Hello, world!</h1>
<h2>It is {new Date().toLocaleTimeString()}.</h2>
</div>
);
ReactDOM.render(element, document.getElementById('root'));
}
setInterval(tick, 1000);
When you declare a component as a function or a class, it must never modify its own props.
Let us take a below capital function,
function capital(amount, interest) {
return amount + interest;
}
The above function is called “pure” because it does not attempt to change their inputs, and always return the same result for the same inputs. Hence, React has a single rule saying "All React components must act like pure functions with respect to their props."
When you call setState() in the component, React merges the object you provide into the current state.
For example, let us take a facebook user with posts and comments details as state variables,
constructor(props) {
super(props);
this.state = {
posts: [],
comments: []
};
}
Now you can update them independently with separate setState()
calls as below,
componentDidMount() {
fetchPosts().then(response => {
this.setState({
posts: response.posts
});
});
fetchComments().then(response => {
this.setState({
comments: response.comments
});
});
}
As mentioned in the above code snippets, this.setState({comments})
updates only comments variable without modifying or replacing posts
variable.
During iterations or loops, it is common to pass an extra parameter to an event handler. This can be achieved through arrow functions or bind method.
Let us take an example of user details updated in a grid,
<button onClick={(e) => this.updateUser(userId, e)}>Update User details</button>
<button onClick={this.updateUser.bind(this, userId)}>Update User details</button>
In the both approaches, the synthetic argument e
is passed as a second argument. You need to pass it explicitly for arrow functions and it will be passed automatically for bind
method.
You can prevent component from rendering by returning null based on specific condition. This way it can conditionally render component.
function Greeting(props) {
if (!props.loggedIn) {
return null;
}
return (
<div className="greeting">
welcome, {props.name}
</div>
);
}
class User extends React.Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props);
this.state = {loggedIn: false, name: 'John'};
}
render() {
return (
<div>
//Prevent component render if it is not loggedIn
<Greeting loggedIn={this.state.loggedIn} />
<UserDetails name={this.state.name}>
</div>
);
}
In the above example, the greeting
component skips its rendering section by applying condition and returning null value.
There are three conditions to make sure, it is safe use the index as a key.
The keys used within arrays should be unique among their siblings but they don’t need to be globally unique. i.e, You can use the same keys with two different arrays.
For example, the below Book
component uses two arrays with different arrays,
function Book(props) {
const index = (
<ul>
{props.pages.map((page) =>
<li key={page.id}>
{page.title}
</li>
)}
</ul>
);
const content = props.pages.map((page) =>
<div key={page.id}>
<h3>{page.title}</h3>
<p>{page.content}</p>
<p>{page.pageNumber}</p>
</div>
);
return (
<div>
{index}
<hr />
{content}
</div>
);
}
Formik
is a form library for react which provides solutions such as validation, keeping track of the visited fields, and handling form submission.
In detail, You can categorize them as follows,
It is used to create a scalable, performant, form helper with a minimal API to solve annoying stuff.
Below are the main reasons to recommend formik over redux form library,
In React, it is recommended to use composition over inheritance to reuse code between components. Both Props and composition give you all the flexibility you need to customize a component’s look and behavior explicitly and safely. Whereas, If you want to reuse non-UI functionality between components, it is suggested to extract it into a separate JavaScript module. Later components import it and use that function, object, or class, without extending it.
Yes, you can use web components in a react application. Even though many developers won't use this combination, it may require especially if you are using third-party UI components that are written using Web Components.
For example, let us use Vaadin
date picker web component as below,
import React, { Component } from 'react';
import './App.css';
import '@vaadin/vaadin-date-picker';
class App extends Component {
render() {
return (
<div className="App">
<vaadin-date-picker label="When were you born?"></vaadin-date-picker>
</div>
);
}
}
export default App;
You can achieve code-splitting in your app using dynamic import.
Let's take an example of addition,
import { add } from './math';
console.log(add(10, 20));
import("./math").then(math => {
console.log(math.add(10, 20));
});
If you want to do code-splitting in a server rendered app, it is recommend to use Loadable Components because React.lazy and Suspense is not yet available for server-side rendering. Loadable lets you render a dynamic import as a regular component.
Lets take an example,
import loadable from '@loadable/component'
const OtherComponent = loadable(() => import('./OtherComponent'))
function MyComponent() {
return (
<div>
<OtherComponent />
</div>
)
}
Now OtherComponent will be loaded in a separated bundle
If the module containing the dynamic import is not yet loaded by the time parent component renders, you must show some fallback content while you’re waiting for it to load using a loading indicator. This can be done using Suspense component.
For example, the below code uses suspense component,
const OtherComponent = React.lazy(() => import('./OtherComponent'));
function MyComponent() {
return (
<div>
<Suspense fallback={<div>Loading...</div>}>
<OtherComponent />
</Suspense>
</div>
);
}
As mentioned in the above code, Suspense is wrapped above the lazy component.
One of the best place to do code splitting is with routes. The entire page is going to re-render at once so users are unlikely to interact with other elements in the page at the same time. Due to this, the user experience won't be disturbed.
Let us take an example of route based website using libraries like React Router with React.lazy,
import { BrowserRouter as Router, Route, Switch } from 'react-router-dom';
import React, { Suspense, lazy } from 'react';
const Home = lazy(() => import('./routes/Home'));
const About = lazy(() => import('./routes/About'));
const App = () => (
<Router>
<Suspense fallback={<div>Loading...</div>}>
<Switch>
<Route exact path="/" component={Home}/>
<Route path="/about" component={About}/>
</Switch>
</Suspense>
</Router>
);
In the above code, the code splitting will happen at each route level.
Context is designed to share data that can be considered global for a tree of React components.
For example, in the code below lets manually thread through a “theme” prop in order to style the Button component.
//Lets create a context with a default theme value "luna"
const ThemeContext = React.createContext('luna');
// Create App component where it uses provider to pass theme value in the tree
class App extends React.Component {
render() {
return (
<ThemeContext.Provider value="nova">
<Toolbar />
</ThemeContext.Provider>
);
}
}
// A middle component where you don't need to pass theme prop anymore
function Toolbar(props) {
return (
<div>
<ThemedButton />
</div>
);
}
// Lets read theme value in the button component to use
class ThemedButton extends React.Component {
static contextType = ThemeContext;
render() {
return <Button theme={this.context} />;
}
}
The defaultValue argument is only used when a component does not have a matching Provider above it in the tree. This can be helpful for testing components in isolation without wrapping them.
Below code snippet provides default theme value as Luna.
const MyContext = React.createContext(defaultValue);
ContextType is used to consume the context object. The contextType property can be used in two ways,
Lets assign contextType property on MyClass as below,
class MyClass extends React.Component {
componentDidMount() {
let value = this.context;
/* perform a side-effect at mount using the value of MyContext */
}
componentDidUpdate() {
let value = this.context;
/* ... */
}
componentWillUnmount() {
let value = this.context;
/* ... */
}
render() {
let value = this.context;
/* render something based on the value of MyContext */
}
}
MyClass.contextType = MyContext;
class MyClass extends React.Component {
static contextType = MyContext;
render() {
let value = this.context;
/* render something based on the value */
}
}
A Consumer is a React component that subscribes to context changes. It requires a function as a child which receives current context value as argument and returns a react node. The value argument passed to the function will be equal to the value prop of the closest Provider for this context above in the tree.
Lets take a simple example,
<MyContext.Consumer>
{value => /* render something based on the context value */}
</MyContext.Consumer>
The context uses reference identity to determine when to re-render, there are some gotchas that could trigger unintentional renders in consumers when a provider’s parent re-renders.
For example, the code below will re-render all consumers every time the Provider re-renders because a new object is always created for value.
class App extends React.Component {
render() {
return (
<Provider value={{something: 'something'}}>
<Toolbar />
</Provider>
);
}
}
This can be solved by lifting up the value to parent state,
class App extends React.Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props);
this.state = {
value: {something: 'something'},
};
}
render() {
return (
<Provider value={this.state.value}>
<Toolbar />
</Provider>
);
}
}
Refs will not get passed through because ref is not a prop. It is handled differently by React just like key. If you add a ref to a HOC, the ref will refer to the outermost container component, not the wrapped component. In this case, you can use Forward Ref API. For example, we can explicitly forward refs to the inner FancyButton component using the React.forwardRef API.
The below HOC logs all props,
function logProps(Component) {
class LogProps extends React.Component {
componentDidUpdate(prevProps) {
console.log('old props:', prevProps);
console.log('new props:', this.props);
}
render() {
const {forwardedRef, ...rest} = this.props;
// Assign the custom prop "forwardedRef" as a ref
return <Component ref={forwardedRef} {...rest} />;
}
}
return React.forwardRef((props, ref) => {
return <LogProps {...props} forwardedRef={ref} />;
});
}
Let's use this HOC to log all props that get passed to our “fancy button” component,
class FancyButton extends React.Component {
focus() {
// ...
}
// ...
}
export default logProps(FancyButton);
Now let's create a ref and pass it to FancyButton component. In this case, you can set focus to button element.
import FancyButton from './FancyButton';
const ref = React.createRef();
ref.current.focus();
<FancyButton
label="Click Me"
handleClick={handleClick}
ref={ref}
/>;
Regular function or class components don’t receive the ref argument, and ref is not available in props either. The second ref argument only exists when you define a component with React.forwardRef call.
When you start using forwardRef in a component library, you should treat it as a breaking change and release a new major version of your library. This is because your library likely has a different behavior such as what refs get assigned to, and what types are exported. These changes can break apps and other libraries that depend on the old behavior.
If you don’t use ES6 then you may need to use the create-react-class module instead. For default props, you need to define getDefaultProps() as a function on the passed object. Whereas for initial state, you have to provide a separate getInitialState method that returns the initial state.
var Greeting = createReactClass({
getDefaultProps: function() {
return {
name: 'Jhohn'
};
},
getInitialState: function() {
return {message: this.props.message};
},
handleClick: function() {
console.log(this.state.message);
},
render: function() {
return <h1>Hello, {this.props.name}</h1>;
}
});
Note: If you use createReactClass then auto binding is available for all methods. i.e, You don't need to use .bind(this)
with in constructor for event handlers.
Yes, JSX is not mandatory for using React. Actually it is convenient when you don’t want to set up compilation in your build environment. Each JSX element is just syntactic sugar for calling React.createElement(component, props, ...children)
.
For example, let us take a greeting example with JSX,
class Greeting extends React.Component {
render() {
return <div>Hello {this.props.message}</div>;
}
}
ReactDOM.render(
<Greeting message="World" />,
document.getElementById('root')
);
You can write the same code without JSX as below,
class Greeting extends React.Component {
render() {
return React.createElement('div', null, `Hello ${this.props.message}`);
}
}
ReactDOM.render(
React.createElement(Greeting, {message: 'World'}, null),
document.getElementById('root')
);
React needs to use algorithms to find out how to efficiently update the UI to match the most recent tree. The diffing algorithms is generating the minimum number of operations to transform one tree into another. However, the algorithms have a complexity in the order of O(n3) where n is the number of elements in the tree.
In this case, displaying 1000 elements would require in the order of one billion comparisons. This is far too expensive. Instead, React implements a heuristic O(n) algorithm based on two assumptions:
When diffing two trees, React first compares the two root elements. The behavior is different depending on the types of the root elements. It covers the below rules during reconciliation algorithm:
Whenever the root elements have different types, React will tear down the old tree and build the new tree from scratch.
For example: elements
<a> to <img>, or from <Article> to <Comment>
of different types lead a full rebuild. 2. DOM Elements Of The Same Type:
When comparing two React DOM elements of the same type, React looks at the attributes of both, keeps the same underlying DOM node, and only updates the changed attributes. Lets take an example with same DOM elements except className attribute,
<div className="show" title="ReactJS" />
<div className="hide" title="ReactJS" />
<ul>
<li>first</li>
<li>second</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>first</li>
<li>second</li>
<li>third</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li key="2015">Duke</li>
<li key="2016">Villanova</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li key="2014">Connecticut</li>
<li key="2015">Duke</li>
<li key="2016">Villanova</li>
</ul>
There are few use cases to go for refs,
Even though the pattern named render props, you don't have to use a prop named render to use this pattern. i.e, Any prop that is a function that a component uses to know what to render is technically a “render prop”. Lets take an example with the children prop for render props,
<Mouse children={mouse => (
<p>The mouse position is {mouse.x}, {mouse.y}</p>
)}/>
Actually children prop doesn't need to be named in the list of “attributes” in JSX element. Instead, you can keep it directly inside element,
<Mouse>
{mouse => (
<p>The mouse position is {mouse.x}, {mouse.y}</p>
)}
</Mouse>
While using this above technique(without any name), explicitly state that children should be a function in your propTypes.
Mouse.propTypes = {
children: PropTypes.func.isRequired
};
If you create a function inside a render method, it negates the purpose of pure component. Because the shallow prop comparison will always return false for new props, and each render in this case will generate a new value for the render prop. You can solve this issue by defining the render function as instance method.
You can implement most higher-order components (HOC) using a regular component with a render prop. For example, if you would prefer to have a withMouse HOC instead of a "Mouse" Component, you could easily create one using a regular "Mouse" with a render prop.
function withMouse(Component) {
return class extends React.Component {
render() {
return (
<Mouse render={mouse => (
<Component {...this.props} mouse={mouse} />
)}/>
);
}
}
}
This way render props gives the flexibility of using either pattern.
Windowing is a technique that only renders a small subset of your rows at any given time, and can dramatically reduce the time it takes to re-render the components as well as the number of DOM nodes created. If your application renders long lists of data then this technique is recommended. Both react-window and react-virtualized are popular windowing libraries which provides several reusable components for displaying lists, grids, and tabular data.
The falsy values such as false, null, undefined, and true are valid children but they don't render anything. If you still want to display them then you need to convert it to string. Let's take an example on how to convert to a string,
<div>
My JavaScript variable is {String(myVariable)}.
</div>
React portals are very useful when a parent component has overflow: hidden or has properties that affect the stacking context (e.g. z-index, position, opacity) and you need to visually “break out” of its container.
For example, dialogs, global message notifications, hovercards, and tooltips.
In React, the value attribute on form elements will override the value in the DOM. With an uncontrolled component, you might want React to specify the initial value, but leave subsequent updates uncontrolled. To handle this case, you can specify a defaultValue attribute instead of value.
render() {
return (
<form onSubmit={this.handleSubmit}>
<label>
User Name:
<input
defaultValue="John"
type="text"
ref={this.input} />
</label>
<input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>
);
}
The same applies for select
and textArea
inputs. But you need to use defaultChecked for checkbox
and radio
inputs.
Even though the tech stack varies from developer to developer, the most popular stack is used in react boilerplate project code. It mainly uses Redux and redux-saga for state management and asynchronous side-effects, react-router for routing purpose, styled-components for styling react components, axios for invoking REST api, and other supported stack such as webpack, reselect, ESNext, Babel. You can clone the project https://github.com/react-boilerplate/react-boilerplate and start working on any new react project.
Below are the main differences between Real DOM and Virtual DOM,
Real DOM | Virtual DOM |
---|---|
Updates are slow | Updates are fast |
DOM manipulation is very expensive. | DOM manipulation is very easy |
You can update HTML directly. | You Can’t directly update HTML |
It causes too much of memory wastage | There is no memory wastage |
Creates a new DOM if element updates | It updates the JSX if element update |
Bootstrap can be added to your React app in a three possible ways,
npm install bootstrap
Below are the top 10 websites
using React as their front-end framework,
React does not have any opinion about how styles are defined but if you are a beginner then good starting point is to define your styles in a separate *.css file as usual and refer to them using className. This functionality is not part of React but came from third-party libraries. But If you want to try a different approach(CSS-In-JS) then styled-components library is a good option.
No. But you can try Hooks in a few components(or new components) without rewriting any existing code. Because there are no plans to remove classes in ReactJS.
The effect hook called useEffect
is used to fetch the data with axios from the API and to set the data in the local state of the component with the state hook's update function.
Let's take an example in which it fetches list of react articles from the API
import React, { useState, useEffect } from 'react';
import axios from 'axios';
function App() {
const [data, setData] = useState({ hits: [] });
useEffect(() => {
(async () => {
const result = await axios(
'http://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=react',
);
setData(result.data);
})()
}, []);
return (
<ul>
{data.hits.map(item => (
<li key={item.objectID}>
<a href={item.url}>{item.title}</a>
</li>
))}
</ul>
);
}
export default App;
Remember we provided an empty array as second argument to the effect hook to avoid activating it on component updates but only on mounting of the component. i.e, It fetches only on component mount.
Hooks doesn't cover all use cases of classes but there is a plan to add them soon. Currently there are no Hook equivalents to the uncommon getSnapshotBeforeUpdate and componentDidCatch lifecycles yet.
React includes a stable implementation of React Hooks in 16.8 release for below packages
When we declare a state variable with useState
, it returns a pair — an array with two items. The first item is the current value, and the second is a function that updates the value. Using [0] and [1] to access them is a bit confusing because they have a specific meaning. This is why we use array destructuring instead.
For example, the array index access would look as follows:
var userStateVariable = useState('userProfile'); // Returns an array pair
var user = userStateVariable[0]; // Access first item
var setUser = userStateVariable[1]; // Access second item
Whereas with array destructuring the variables can be accessed as follows:
const [user, setUser] = useState('userProfile');
Hooks got the ideas from several different sources. Below are some of them,
Web Components often expose an imperative API to implement its functions. You will need to use a ref to interact with the DOM node directly if you want to access imperative API of a web component. But if you are using third-party Web Components, the best solution is to write a React component that behaves as a wrapper for your Web Component.
Formik is a small react form library that helps you with the three major problems,
Some of the popular middleware choices for handling asynchronous calls in Redux eco system are Redux Thunk, Redux Promise, Redux Saga
.
No, browsers can't understand JSX code. You need a transpiler to convert your JSX to regular Javascript that browsers can understand. The most widely used transpiler right now is Babel.
React implements one-way reactive data flow using props which reduce boilerplate and is easier to understand than traditional two-way data binding.
The react-scripts
package is a set of scripts from the create-react-app starter pack which helps you kick off projects without configuring. The react-scripts start
command sets up the development environment and starts a server, as well as hot module reloading.
Below are the list of some of the features provided by create react app.
The ReactDOMServer#renderToNodeStream
method is used to generate HTML on the server and send the markup down on the initial request for faster page loads. It also helps search engines to crawl your pages easily for SEO purposes.
Note: Remember this method is not available in the browser but only server.
MobX is a simple, scalable and battle tested state management solution for applying functional reactive programming (TFRP). For reactJs application, you need to install below packages,
npm install mobx --save
npm install mobx-react --save
Below are the main differences between Redux and MobX,
Topic | Redux | MobX |
---|---|---|
Definition | It is a javascript library for managing the application state | It is a library for reactively managing the state of your applications |
Programming | It is mainly written in ES6 | It is written in JavaScript(ES5) |
Data Store | There is only one large store exist for data storage | There is more than one store for storage |
Usage | Mainly used for large and complex applications | Used for simple applications |
Performance | Need to be improved | Provides better performance |
How it stores | Uses JS Object to store | Uses observable to store the data |
No, you don’t have to learn es2015/es6 to learn react. But you may find many resources or React ecosystem uses ES6 extensively. Let's see some of the frequently used ES6 features,
// in es 5
var someData = this.props.someData
var dispatch = this.props.dispatch
// in es6
const { someData, dispatch } = this.props
// in es 5
<SomeComponent someData={this.props.someData} dispatch={this.props.dispatch} />
// in es6
<SomeComponent {...this.props} />
// es 5
var users = usersList.map(function (user) {
return <li>{user.name}</li>
})
// es 6
const users = usersList.map(user => <li>{user.name}</li>);
The Concurrent rendering makes React apps to be more responsive by rendering component trees without blocking the main UI thread. It allows React to interrupt a long-running render to handle a high-priority event. i.e, When you enabled concurrent Mode, React will keep an eye on other tasks that need to be done, and if there's something with a higher priority it will pause what it is currently rendering and let the other task finish first. You can enable this in two ways,
// 1. Part of an app by wrapping with ConcurrentMode
<React.unstable_ConcurrentMode>
<Something />
</React.unstable_ConcurrentMode>
// 2. Whole app using createRoot
ReactDOM.unstable_createRoot(domNode).render(<App />);
Both refers the same thing. Previously concurrent Mode being referred to as "Async Mode" by React team. The name has been changed to highlight React’s ability to perform work on different priority levels. So it avoids the confusion from other approaches to Async Rendering.
Yes, you can use javascript: URLs but it will log a warning in the console. Because URLs starting with javascript: are dangerous by including unsanitized output in a tag like <a href>
and create a security hole.
const companyProfile = {
website: "javascript: alert('Your website is hacked')",
};
// It will log a warning
<a href={companyProfile.website}>More details</a>
Remember that the future versions will throw an error for javascript URLs.
The ESLint plugin enforces rules of Hooks to avoid bugs. It assumes that any function starting with ”use” and a capital letter right after it is a Hook. In particular, the rule enforces that,
Imagine a simple UI component, such as a "Like" button. When you tap it, it turns blue if it was previously grey, and grey if it was previously blue.
The imperative way of doing this would be:
if( user.likes() ) {
if( hasBlue() ) {
removeBlue();
addGrey();
} else {
removeGrey();
addBlue();
}
}
Basically, you have to check what is currently on the screen and handle all the changes necessary to redraw it with the current state, including undoing the changes from the previous state. You can imagine how complex this could be in a real-world scenario.
In contrast, the declarative approach would be:
if( this.state.liked ) {
return <blueLike />;
} else {
return <greyLike />;
}
Because the declarative approach separates concerns, this part of it only needs to handle how the UI should look in a sepecific state, and is therefore much simpler to understand.
Below are some of the benefits of using typescript with Reactjs,
When a user logs in and reload, to persist the state generally we add the load user action in the useEffect hooks in the main App.js. While using Redux, loadUser action can be easily accessed.
App.js
import {loadUser} from '../actions/auth';
store.dispatch(loadUser());
index.js
import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import App from './App';
import AuthState from './context/auth/AuthState'
ReactDOM.render(
<React.StrictMode>
<AuthState>
<App />
</AuthState>
</React.StrictMode>,
document.getElementById('root')
);
App.js
const authContext = useContext(AuthContext);
const { loadUser } = authContext;
useEffect(() => {
loadUser();
},[])
loadUser
const loadUser = async () => {
const token = sessionStorage.getItem('token');
if(!token){
dispatch({
type: ERROR
})
}
setAuthToken(token);
try {
const res = await axios('/api/auth');
dispatch({
type: USER_LOADED,
payload: res.data.data
})
} catch (err) {
console.error(err);
}
}
There are three major benefits of new JSX transform,
The new JSX transform doesn’t require React to be in scope. i.e, You don't need to import React package for simple scenarios.
Let's take an example to look at the main differences between the old and the new transform,
Old Transform:
import React from 'react';
function App() {
return <h1>Good morning!!</h1>;
}
Now JSX transform convert the above code into regular JavaScript as below,
import React from 'react';
function App() {
return React.createElement('h1', null, 'Good morning!!');
}
New Transform:
The new JSX transform doesn't require any React imports
function App() {
return <h1>Good morning!!</h1>;
}
Under the hood JSX transform compiles to below code
import {jsx as _jsx} from 'react/jsx-runtime';
function App() {
return _jsx('h1', { children: 'Good morning!!' });
}
Note: You still need to import React to use Hooks.
Redux team has provided official redux+js or redux+typescript templates for create-react-app project. The generated project setup includes,
<Provider>
passing the store to React componentsThe below commands need to be executed along with template option as below,
npx create-react-app my-app --template redux
npx create-react-app my-app --template redux-typescript
React Server Component is a way to write React component that gets rendered in the server-side with the purpose of improving React app performance. These components allow us to load components from the backend.
Note: React Server Components is still under development and not recommended for production yet.
Prop Drilling is the process by which you pass data from one component of the React Component tree to another by going through other components that do not need the data but only help in passing it around.
State mutation
happens when you try to update the state of a component without actually using setState
function. This can happen when you are trying to do some computations using a state variable and unknowingly save the result in the same state variable. This is the main reason why it is advised to return new instances of state variables from the reducers by using Object.assign(, ...) or spread syntax.
This can cause unknown issues in the UI as the value of the state variable got updated without telling React to check what all components were being affected from this update and it can cause UI bugs.
Ex:
class A extends React.component {
constructor(props) {
super(props);
this.state = {
loading: false
}
}
componentDidMount() {
let { loading } = this.state;
loading = (() => true)(); // Trying to perform an operation and directly saving in a state variable
}
How to prevent it: Make sure your state variables are immutable by either enforcing immutability by using plugins like Immutable.js, always using setState
to make updates, and returning new instances in reducers when sending updated state values.