React Router Basics

React Router

What is React Router?

• A popular JavaScript library for building single-page applications (SPAs) with React
• Enables client-side routing, allowing users to navigate between pages without full page reloads

Key Features

• Declarative Routing: Define routes using JSX elements, making it easy to manage complex navigation flows
• Route Configuration: Configure routes using a simple, intuitive API
• Route Matching: React Router automatically matches routes based on URL patterns
• Route Parameters: Extract parameters from URLs and pass them to components as props
• Redirects: Programmatically redirect users to different routes
• Nested Routes: Define routes within routes, enabling complex navigation hierarchies

Core Components

• BrowserRouter: The main component that wraps the entire application, providing the router context
• Route: A component that defines a route, specifying the path and the component to render
• Switch: A component that renders the first matching route, useful for handling multiple routes
• Link: A component that creates a clickable link to navigate to a different route
• NavLink: A special type of Link that adds an active class when the route is active

Hooks

• useHistory: Provides access to the router's history object, allowing for programmatic navigation
• useLocation: Provides access to the current location object, enabling route-based logic
• useParams: Extracts route parameters from the URL, making them available as props
• useRouteMatch: Provides information about the current route match, including the path and URL parameters

Server-Side Rendering (SSR)

• Static Route Rendering: React Router provides built-in support for SSR, allowing for faster page loads
• Server-Side Routing: React Router can handle routing on the server-side, enabling more complex routing scenarios

React Router

• A popular JavaScript library for building single-page applications (SPAs) with React.
• Enables client-side routing, allowing users to navigate between pages without full page reloads.

Key Features

• Declarative routing allows defining routes using JSX elements.
• Route configuration is done using a simple, intuitive API.
• Route matching is done automatically by React Router based on URL patterns.
• Route parameters can be extracted from URLs and passed to components as props.
• Programmatically redirect users to different routes using redirects.
• Nested routes can be defined within routes, enabling complex navigation hierarchies.

Core Components

• BrowserRouter: Provides the router context and wraps the entire application.
• Route: Defines a route, specifying the path and the component to render.
• Switch: Renders the first matching route, useful for handling multiple routes.
• Link: Creates a clickable link to navigate to a different route.
• NavLink: A special type of Link that adds an active class when the route is active.

Hooks

• useHistory: Provides access to the router's history object, enabling programmatic navigation.
• useLocation: Provides access to the current location object, enabling route-based logic.
• useParams: Extracts route parameters from the URL, making them available as props.
• useRouteMatch: Provides information about the current route match, including the path and URL parameters.

Server-Side Rendering (SSR)

• Static Route Rendering: React Router provides built-in support for SSR, enabling faster page loads.
• Server-Side Routing: React Router can handle routing on the server-side, enabling more complex routing scenarios.

React Library

• React is a library for building user interfaces for web and native applications.
• It allows you to build user interfaces out of individual pieces called components.
• Components can be combined to create entire screens, pages, and apps.

Components

• React components are JavaScript functions.
• They receive data and return what should appear on the screen.
• You can pass new data to components in response to user interactions, and React will update the screen accordingly.

JSX

• JSX is a JavaScript syntax extension popularized by React.
• It is used to write markup syntax that is close to related rendering logic.
• JSX makes it easy to create, maintain, and delete React components.

Integrating with Existing HTML

• You can add React to an existing HTML page and render interactive React components anywhere on it.
• You don't have to build your whole page in React.

Building Full-Stack Apps

• To build a full-stack app with React, you can use a framework like Next.js or Remix.
• React is a library, not a full-stack framework, so it doesn't prescribe how to do routing and data fetching.

Architecture and Data Fetching

• React can be used as an architecture for building apps.
• Frameworks that implement React let you fetch data in asynchronous components that run on the server or during the build.
• You can read data from a file or database and pass it down to interactive components.

Cross-Platform Development

• React lets you build both web and native apps using the same skills.
• It leans on each platform's unique strengths to provide a native-like experience on every platform.

Web App Performance

• React enables fast page loading by streaming HTML on the server while fetching data.
• On the client, React uses standard web APIs to keep the UI responsive during rendering.

Native Apps

• React Native and Expo let you build native apps for Android, iOS, and more using React.
• Native apps built with React provide a native-like experience because they render real platform views.

Community and Ecosystem

• The React team continuously researches ways to improve React.
• The React community has a high bar for taking research ideas into production.
• React has a large and active community of developers, designers, beginners, and experts.
• The React community is a place to ask for help, find opportunities, and meet new people.