React Interview Sudheer
React Interview Sudheer
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Note: This repository is specific to ReactJS. Please check Javascript Interview questions for core javascript questions.
Table of Contents
No. Questions
Core React
1 What is React?
3 What is JSX?
18 What is "key" prop and what is the benefit of using it in arrays of elements?
37 What is context?
41 What is reconciliation?
43 What would be the common mistake of function being called every time the component renders?
59 What is ReactDOMServer?
91 What is the difference between super() and super(props) in React using ES6 classes?
103 What is the recommended approach of removing an array element in react state?
110 How can we find the version of React at runtime in the browser?
117 How to import and export components using react and ES6?
127 How to make AJAX call and In which component lifecycle methods should I make an AJAX call?
React Router
135 Why you get "Router may have only one child element" warning?
React Internationalization
React Testing
React Redux
No. Questions
165 What is the difference between React context and React Redux?
170 What is the difference between component and container in React Redux?
173 What is the use of the ownProps parameter in mapStateToProps() and mapDispatchToProps()?
177 What are the differences between call and put in redux-saga
React Native
Miscellaneous
209 Does the statics object work with ES6 classes in React?
213 How React PropTypes allow different type for one prop?
219 Do I need to keep all my state into Redux? Should I ever use react internal state?
224 How do you render Array, Strings and Numbers in React 16 Version?
233 Why do you not need error boundaries for event handlers?
234 What is the difference between try catch block and error boundaries?
237 What is the benefit of component stack trace from error boundary?
267 What are the conditions to safely use the index as a key?
270 What are the advantages of formik over redux form library?
281 How do you solve performance corner cases while using context?
284 Why do you need additional care for component libraries while using forward refs?
291 What are the problems of using render props with pure components?
298 What is the difference between Real DOM and Virtual DOM?
300 Can you list down top websites or applications using react as front end framework?
310 What are typical middleware choices for handling asynchronous calls in Redux?
320 What is the difference between async mode and concurrent mode?
How do you make sure that user remains authenticated on page refresh while using Context API State
325
Management?
327 How does new JSX transform different from old transform?
Core React
1. What is React?
React is an open-source front-end JavaScript library that is used for building user interfaces, especially for single-page applications. It is used for handling
view layer for web and mobile apps. React was created by Jordan Walke, a software engineer working for Facebook. React was first deployed on Facebook's
News Feed in 2011 and on Instagram in 2012.
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It uses VirtualDOM instead of RealDOM considering that RealDOM manipulations are expensive.
Supports server-side rendering.
Follows Unidirectional data flow or data binding.
Uses reusable/composable UI components to develop the view.
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3. What is JSX?
JSX is a XML-like syntax extension to ECMAScript (the acronym stands for JavaScript XML). Basically it just provides syntactic sugar for the
React.createElement() function, giving us expressiveness of JavaScript along with HTML like template syntax.
In the example below text inside <h1> tag is returned as JavaScript function to the render function.
jsx harmony class App extends React.Component { render() { return( <div> <h1>{'Welcome to React world!'}</h1> </div> ) } }
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An Element is a plain object describing what you want to appear on the screen in terms of the DOM nodes or other components. Elements can contain other
Elements in their props. Creating a React element is cheap. Once an element is created, it is never mutated.
{
type: 'div',
props: {
children: 'Login',
id: 'login-btn'
}
}
<div id='login-btn'>Login</div>
Whereas a component can be declared in several different ways. It can be a class with a render() method or it can be defined as a function. In either case, it
takes props as an input, and returns a JSX tree as the output:
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1. Function Components: This is the simplest way to create a component. Those are pure JavaScript functions that accept props object as the first
parameter and return React elements:
{ Hello, ${message} }
} ```
2. Class Components: You can also use ES6 class to define a component. The above function component can be written as:
jsx harmony class Greeting extends React.Component { render() { return <h1>{`Hello, ${this.props.message}`}</h1> } }
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If the component needs state or lifecycle methods then use class component otherwise use function component. However, from React 16.8 with the addition
of Hooks, you could use state , lifecycle methods and other features that were only available in class component right in your function component. *So, it is
always recommended to use Function components, unless you need a React functionality whose Function component equivalent is not present yet, like Error
Boundaries *
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7. What are Pure Components?
React.PureComponent is exactly the same as React.Component except that it handles the shouldComponentUpdate() method for you. When props or
state changes, PureComponent will do a shallow comparison on both props and state. Component on the other hand won't compare current props and state to
next out of the box. Thus, the component will re-render by default whenever shouldComponentUpdate is called.
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State of a component is an object that holds some information that may change over the lifetime of the component. We should always try to make our state
as simple as possible and minimize the number of stateful components.
this.state = {
message: 'Welcome to React world'
}
render() { return (
{this.state.message}
) } } ```
state
State is similar to props, but it is private and fully controlled by the component ,i.e., it is not accessible to any other component till the owner component
decides to pass it.
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Props are inputs to components. They are single values or objects containing a set of values that are passed to components on creation using a naming
convention similar to HTML-tag attributes. They are data passed down from a parent component to a child component.
```jsx harmony
This `reactProp` (or whatever you came up with) name then becomes a property attached to React's native props object which originally a
props.reactProp ```
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Both props and state are plain JavaScript objects. While both of them hold information that influences the output of render, they are different in their
functionality with respect to component. Props get passed to the component similar to function parameters whereas state is managed within the component
similar to variables declared within a function.
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If you try to update the state directly then it won't re-render the component.
//Wrong
this.state.message = 'Hello world'
Instead use setState() method. It schedules an update to a component's state object. When state changes, the component responds by re-rendering.
//Correct
this.setState({ message: 'Hello World' })
Note: You can directly assign to the state object either in constructor or using latest javascript's class field declaration syntax.
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The callback function is invoked when setState finished and the component gets rendered. Since setState() is asynchronous the callback function is used
for any post action.
Note: It is recommended to use lifecycle method rather than this callback function.
setState({ name: 'John' }, () => console.log('The name has updated and component re-rendered'))
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13. What is the difference between HTML and React event handling?
Below are some of the main differences between HTML and React event handling,
<button onclick='activateLasers()'>
function handleClick(event) {
event.preventDefault()
console.log('The link was clicked.')
}
3. In HTML, you need to invoke the function by appending () Whereas in react you should not append () with the function name. (refer
"activateLasers" function in the first point for example)
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1. Binding in Constructor: In JavaScript classes, the methods are not bound by default. The same thing applies for React event handlers defined as class
methods. Normally we bind them in constructor.
2. Public class fields syntax: If you don't like to use bind approach then public class fields syntax can be used to correctly bind callbacks.
3. Arrow functions in callbacks: You can use arrow functions directly in the callbacks.
jsx harmony handleClick() { console.log('Click happened'); } render() { return <button onClick={() =>
this.handleClick()}>Click Me</button>; }
Note: If the callback is passed as prop to child components, those components might do an extra re-rendering. In those cases, it is preferred to go with
.bind() or public class fields syntax approach considering performance.
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You can use an arrow function to wrap around an event handler and pass parameters:
```jsx harmony
this.handleClick(id)} />
```jsx harmony
<button onClick={this.handleClick.bind(this, id)} />
Apart from these two approaches, you can also pass arguments to a function which is defined as arrow function jsx harmony <button
onClick={this.handleClick(id)} /> handleClick = (id) => () => { console.log("Hello, your ticket number is", id) };
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SyntheticEvent is a cross-browser wrapper around the browser's native event. Its API is same as the browser's native event, including
stopPropagation() and preventDefault() , except the events work identically across all browsers.
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You can use either if statements or ternary expressions which are available from JS to conditionally render expressions. Apart from these approaches, you can
also embed any expressions in JSX by wrapping them in curly braces and then followed by JS logical operator && .
jsx harmony <h1>Hello!</h1> { messages.length > 0 && !isLogin? <h2> You have {messages.length} unread messages. </h2> : <h2>
You don't have unread messages. </h2> }
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18. What is "key" prop and what is the benefit of using it in arrays of elements?
A key is a special string attribute you should include when creating arrays of elements. Key prop helps React identify which items have changed, are added, or
are removed.
19. {todo.text}
)
When you don't have stable IDs for rendered items, you may use the item *index* as a *key* as a last resort:
```jsx harmony
const todoItems = todos.map((todo, index) =>
<li key={index}>
{todo.text}
</li>
)
Note:
1. Using indexes for keys is not recommended if the order of items may change. This can negatively impact performance and may cause issues with
component state.
2. If you extract list item as separate component then apply keys on list component instead of li tag.
3. There will be a warning message in the console if the key prop is not present on list items.
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The ref is used to return a reference to the element. They should be avoided in most cases, however, they can be useful when you need a direct access to the
DOM element or an instance of a component.
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1. This is a recently added approach. Refs are created using React.createRef() method and attached to React elements via the ref attribute. In
order to use refs throughout the component, just assign the ref to the instance property within constructor.
jsx harmony class MyComponent extends React.Component { constructor(props) { super(props) this.myRef = React.createRef()
} render() { return <div ref={this.myRef} /> } }
2. You can also use ref callbacks approach regardless of React version. For example, the search bar component's input element is accessed as follows,
jsx harmony class SearchBar extends Component { constructor(props) { super(props); this.txtSearch = null; this.state = {
term: '' }; this.setInputSearchRef = e => { this.txtSearch = e; } } onInputChange(event) { this.setState({ term:
this.txtSearch.value }); } render() { return ( <input value={this.state.term} onChange={this.onInputChange.bind(this)}
ref={this.setInputSearchRef} /> ); } }
You can also use refs in function components using closures. Note : You can also use inline ref callbacks even though it is not a recommended approach.
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Ref forwarding is a feature that lets some components take a ref they receive, and pass it further down to a child.
// Create ref to the DOM button: const ref = React.createRef(); {'Forward Ref'} ```
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It is preferred to use callback refs over findDOMNode() API. Because findDOMNode() prevents certain improvements in React in the future.
render() {
return <div />
}
}
render() {
return <div ref={this.node} />
}
}
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If you worked with React before, you might be familiar with an older API where the ref attribute is a string, like ref={'textInput'} , and the DOM node is
accessed as this.refs.textInput . We advise against it because string refs have below issues, and are considered legacy. String refs were removed in
React v16 .
1. They force React to keep track of currently executing component . This is problematic because it makes react module stateful, and thus causes weird
errors when react module is duplicated in the bundle.
2. They are not composable — if a library puts a ref on the passed child, the user can't put another ref on it. Callback refs are perfectly composable.
3. They don't work with static analysis like Flow. Flow can't guess the magic that framework does to make the string ref appear on this.refs , as well
as its type (which could be different). Callback refs are friendlier to static analysis.
4. It doesn't work as most people would expect with the "render callback" pattern (e.g. ) ```jsx harmony class MyComponent extends Component {
renderRow = (index) => { // This won't work. Ref will get attached to DataTable rather than MyComponent: return ;
// This would work though! Callback refs are awesome. return this['input-' + index] = input} />; }
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The Virtual DOM (VDOM) is an in-memory representation of Real DOM . The representation of a UI is kept in memory and synced with the "real" DOM. It's a step
that happens between the render function being called and the displaying of elements on the screen. This entire process is called reconciliation.
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1. Whenever any underlying data changes, the entire UI is re-rendered in Virtual DOM representation.
2. Then the difference between the previous DOM representation and the new one is calculated.
3. Once the calculations are done, the real DOM will be updated with only the things that have actually changed.
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27. What is the difference between Shadow DOM and Virtual DOM?
The Shadow DOM is a browser technology designed primarily for scoping variables and CSS in web components. The Virtual DOM is a concept implemented
by libraries in JavaScript on top of browser APIs.
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Fiber is the new reconciliation engine or reimplementation of core algorithm in React v16. The goal of React Fiber is to increase its suitability for areas like
animation, layout, gestures, ability to pause, abort, or reuse work and assign priority to different types of updates; and new concurrency primitives.
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The goal of React Fiber is to increase its suitability for areas like animation, layout, and gestures. Its headline feature is incremental rendering: the ability to
split rendering work into chunks and spread it out over multiple frames.
from documentation
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A component that controls the input elements within the forms on subsequent user input is called Controlled Component, i.e, every state mutation will have an
associated handler function.
For example, to write all the names in uppercase letters, we use handleChange as below,
handleChange(event) {
this.setState({value: event.target.value.toUpperCase()})
}
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The Uncontrolled Components are the ones that store their own state internally, and you query the DOM using a ref to find its current value when you need it.
This is a bit more like traditional HTML.
In the below UserProfile component, the name input is accessed using ref.
```jsx harmony class UserProfile extends React.Component { constructor(props) { super(props) this.handleSubmit = this.handleSubmit.bind(this) this.input =
React.createRef() }
render() { return (
{'Name:'} Submit
); } } ```
In most cases, it's recommend to use controlled components to implement forms. In a controlled component, form data is handled by a React component. The
alternative is uncontrolled components, where form data is handled by the DOM itself.
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JSX elements will be transpiled to React.createElement() functions to create React elements which are going to be used for the object representation of
UI. Whereas cloneElement is used to clone an element and pass it new props.
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When several components need to share the same changing data then it is recommended to lift the shared state up to their closest common ancestor. That
means if two child components share the same data from its parent, then move the state to parent instead of maintaining local state in both of the child
components.
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1. Mounting: The component is ready to mount in the browser DOM. This phase covers initialization from constructor() ,
getDerivedStateFromProps() , render() , and componentDidMount() lifecycle methods.
2. Updating: In this phase, the component gets updated in two ways, sending the new props and updating the state either from setState() or
forceUpdate() . This phase covers getDerivedStateFromProps() , shouldComponentUpdate() , render() , getSnapshotBeforeUpdate() and
componentDidUpdate() lifecycle methods.
3. Unmounting: In this last phase, the component is not needed and gets unmounted from the browser DOM. This phase includes
componentWillUnmount() lifecycle method.
It's worth mentioning that React internally has a concept of phases when applying changes to the DOM. They are separated as follows
1. Render The component will render without any side effects. This applies to Pure components and in this phase, React can pause, abort, or restart the
render.
2. Pre-commit Before the component actually applies the changes to the DOM, there is a moment that allows React to read from the DOM through the
getSnapshotBeforeUpdate() .
3. Commit React works with the DOM and executes the final lifecycles respectively componentDidMount() for mounting, componentDidUpdate() for
updating, and componentWillUnmount() for unmounting.
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componentWillMount: Executed before rendering and is used for App level configuration in your root component.
componentDidMount: Executed after first rendering and here all AJAX requests, DOM or state updates, and set up event listeners should occur.
componentWillReceiveProps: Executed when particular prop updates to trigger state transitions.
shouldComponentUpdate: Determines if the component will be updated or not. By default it returns true . If you are sure that the component doesn't
need to render after state or props are updated, you can return false value. It is a great place to improve performance as it allows you to prevent a re-
render if component receives new prop.
componentWillUpdate: Executed before re-rendering the component when there are props & state changes confirmed by shouldComponentUpdate()
which returns true.
componentDidUpdate: Mostly it is used to update the DOM in response to prop or state changes.
componentWillUnmount: It will be used to cancel any outgoing network requests, or remove all event listeners associated with the component.
React 16.3+
getDerivedStateFromProps: Invoked right before calling render() and is invoked on every render. This exists for rare use cases where you need a
derived state. Worth reading if you need derived state.
componentDidMount: Executed after first rendering and where all AJAX requests, DOM or state updates, and set up event listeners should occur.
shouldComponentUpdate: Determines if the component will be updated or not. By default, it returns true . If you are sure that the component doesn't
need to render after the state or props are updated, you can return a false value. It is a great place to improve performance as it allows you to prevent a
re-render if component receives a new prop.
getSnapshotBeforeUpdate: Executed right before rendered output is committed to the DOM. Any value returned by this will be passed into
componentDidUpdate() . This is useful to capture information from the DOM i.e. scroll position.
componentDidUpdate: Mostly it is used to update the DOM in response to prop or state changes. This will not fire if shouldComponentUpdate()
returns false .
componentWillUnmount It will be used to cancel any outgoing network requests, or remove all event listeners associated with the component.
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A higher-order component (HOC ) is a function that takes a component and returns a new component. Basically, it's a pattern that is derived from React's
compositional nature.
We call them pure components because they can accept any dynamically provided child component but they won't modify or copy any behavior from their
input components.
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You can add/edit props passed to the component using props proxy pattern like this:
```jsx harmony function HOC(WrappedComponent) { return class Test extends Component { render() { const newProps = { title: 'New Header', footer: false,
showFeatureX: false, showFeatureY: true }
} } ```
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Context provides a way to pass data through the component tree without having to pass props down manually at every level.
For example, authenticated users, locale preferences, UI themes need to be accessed in the application by many components.
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Children is a prop ( this.props.children ) that allows you to pass components as data to other components, just like any other prop you use. Component
tree put between component's opening and closing tag will be passed to that component as children prop.
There are several methods available in the React API to work with this prop. These include React.Children.map , React.Children.forEach ,
React.Children.count , React.Children.only , React.Children.toArray .
{this.props.children}
} })
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The comments in React/JSX are similar to JavaScript Multiline comments but are wrapped in curly braces.
Single-line comments:
```jsx harmony
{/* Single-line comments(In vanilla JavaScript, the single-line comments are represented by double slash(//)) */} { Welcome ${user}, let's play React }
**Multi-line comments:**
```jsx harmony
<div>
{/* Multi-line comments for more than
one line */}
{`Welcome ${user}, let's play React`}
</div>
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41. What is the purpose of using super constructor with props argument?
A child class constructor cannot make use of this reference until the super() method has been called. The same applies to ES6 sub-classes as well. The
main reason for passing props parameter to super() call is to access this.props in your child constructors.
Passing props:
render() {
// no difference outside constructor
console.log(this.props) // prints { name: 'John', age: 42 }
}
}
The above code snippets reveals that this.props is different only within the constructor. It would be the same outside the constructor.
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When a component's props or state change, React decides whether an actual DOM update is necessary by comparing the newly returned element with the
previously rendered one. When they are not equal, React will update the DOM. This process is called reconciliation.
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43. How to set state with a dynamic key name?
If you are using ES6 or the Babel transpiler to transform your JSX code then you can accomplish this with computed property names.
handleInputChange(event) {
this.setState({ [event.target.id]: event.target.value })
}
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44. What would be the common mistake of function being called every time the component renders?
You need to make sure that function is not being called while passing the function as a parameter.
```jsx harmony render() { // Wrong: handleClick is called instead of passed as a reference! return {'Click Me'} }
```jsx harmony
render() {
// Correct: handleClick is passed as a reference!
return <button onClick={this.handleClick}>{'Click Me'}</button>
}
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No, currently React.lazy function supports default exports only. If you would like to import modules which are named exports, you can create an
intermediate module that reexports it as the default. It also ensures that tree shaking keeps working and don’t pull unused components. Let's take a
component file which exports multiple named components,
// MoreComponents.js
export const SomeComponent = /* ... */;
export const UnusedComponent = /* ... */;
// IntermediateComponent.js
export { SomeComponent as default } from "./MoreComponents.js";
Now you can import the module using lazy function as below,
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class is a keyword in JavaScript, and JSX is an extension of JavaScript. That's the principal reason why React uses className instead of class . Pass a
string as the className prop.
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It's a common pattern in React which is used for a component to return multiple elements. Fragments let you group a list of children without adding extra
nodes to the DOM.
```jsx harmony
render() {
return (
<>
<ChildA />
<ChildB />
<ChildC />
</>
)
}
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1. Fragments are a bit faster and use less memory by not creating an extra DOM node. This only has a real benefit on very large and deep trees.
2. Some CSS mechanisms like Flexbox and CSS Grid have a special parent-child relationships, and adding divs in the middle makes it hard to keep the
desired layout.
3. The DOM Inspector is less cluttered.
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Portal is a recommended way to render children into a DOM node that exists outside the DOM hierarchy of the parent component.
ReactDOM.createPortal(child, container)
The first argument is any render-able React child, such as an element, string, or fragment. The second argument is a DOM element.
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If the behaviour is independent of its state then it can be a stateless component. You can use either a function or a class for creating stateless components.
But unless you need to use a lifecycle hook in your components, you should go for function components. There are a lot of benefits if you decide to use
function components here; they are easy to write, understand, and test, a little faster, and you can avoid the this keyword altogether.
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If the behaviour of a component is dependent on the state of the component then it can be termed as stateful component. These stateful components are
always class components and have a state that gets initialized in the constructor .
render() {
// ...
}
}
Hooks let you use state and other React features without writing classes.
return (
// JSX
)
}
```
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When the application is running in development mode, React will automatically check all props that we set on components to make sure they have correct
type . If the type is incorrect, React will generate warning messages in the console. It's disabled in production mode due to performance impact. The mandatory
props are defined with isRequired .
1. PropTypes.number
2. PropTypes.string
3. PropTypes.array
4. PropTypes.object
5. PropTypes.func
6. PropTypes.node
7. PropTypes.element
8. PropTypes.bool
9. PropTypes.symbol
10. PropTypes.any
```jsx harmony import React from 'react' import PropTypes from 'prop-types'
class User extends React.Component { static propTypes = { name: PropTypes.string.isRequired, age: PropTypes.number.isRequired }
{ Welcome, ${this.props.name} }
{ Age, ${this.props.age} }
</> ) } }
**Note:** In React v15.5 *PropTypes* were moved from `React.PropTypes` to `prop-types` library.
```jsx harmony
import React from 'react'
import PropTypes from 'prop-types'
User.propTypes = {
name: PropTypes.string.isRequired,
age: PropTypes.number.isRequired
}
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Apart from the advantages, there are few limitations of React too,
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Error boundaries are components that catch JavaScript errors anywhere in their child component tree, log those errors, and display a fallback UI instead of the
component tree that crashed.
A class component becomes an error boundary if it defines a new lifecycle method called componentDidCatch(error, info) or static
getDerivedStateFromError() :
```jsx harmony class ErrorBoundary extends React.Component { constructor(props) { super(props) this.state = { hasError: false } }
componentDidCatch(error, info) { // You can also log the error to an error reporting service logErrorToMyService(error, info) }
static getDerivedStateFromError(error) { // Update state so the next render will show the fallback UI. return { hasError: true }; }
```jsx harmony
<ErrorBoundary>
<MyWidget />
</ErrorBoundary>
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React v15 provided very basic support for error boundaries using unstable_handleError method. It has been renamed to componentDidCatch in React
v16.
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57. What are the recommended ways for static type checking?
Normally we use PropTypes library ( React.PropTypes moved to a prop-types package since React v15.5) for type checking in the React applications. For
large code bases, it is recommended to use static type checkers such as Flow or TypeScript, that perform type checking at compile time and provide auto-
completion features.
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The react-dom package provides DOM-specific methods that can be used at the top level of your app. Most of the components are not required to use this
module. Some of the methods of this package are:
1. render()
2. hydrate()
3. unmountComponentAtNode()
4. findDOMNode()
5. createPortal()
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If the optional callback is provided, it will be executed after the component is rendered or updated.
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The ReactDOMServer object enables you to render components to static markup (typically used on node server). This object is mainly used for server-side
rendering (SSR). The following methods can be used in both the server and browser environments:
1. renderToString()
2. renderToStaticMarkup()
For example, you generally run a Node-based web server like Express, Hapi, or Koa, and you call renderToString to render your root component to a string,
which you then send as response.
// using Express
import { renderToString } from 'react-dom/server'
import MyPage from './MyPage'
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The dangerouslySetInnerHTML attribute is React's replacement for using innerHTML in the browser DOM. Just like innerHTML , it is risky to use this
attribute considering cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. You just need to pass a __html object as key and HTML text as value.
In this example MyComponent uses dangerouslySetInnerHTML attribute for setting HTML markup:
} ```
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The style attribute accepts a JavaScript object with camelCased properties rather than a CSS string. This is consistent with the DOM style JavaScript
property, is more efficient, and prevents XSS security holes.
```jsx harmony const divStyle = { color: 'blue', backgroundImage: 'url(' + imgUrl + ')' };
Hello World!
} ```
Style keys are camelCased in order to be consistent with accessing the properties on DOM nodes in JavaScript (e.g. node.style.backgroundImage ).
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1. React event handlers are named using camelCase, rather than lowercase.
2. With JSX you pass a function as the event handler, rather than a string.
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When you use setState() , then apart from assigning to the object state React also re-renders the component and all its children. You would get error like
this: Can only update a mounted or mounting component. So we need to use this.state to initialize variables inside constructor.
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Keys should be stable, predictable, and unique so that React can keep track of elements.
In the below code snippet each element's key will be based on ordering, rather than tied to the data that is being represented. This limits the optimizations that
React can do.
If you use element data for unique key, assuming todo.id is unique to this list and stable, React would be able to reorder elements wit
```jsx harmony
{todos.map((todo) =>
<Todo {...todo}
key={todo.id} />
)}
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Yes, it is safe to use setState() inside componentWillMount() method. But at the same it is recommended to avoid async initialization in
componentWillMount() lifecycle method. componentWillMount() is invoked immediately before mounting occurs. It is called before render() , therefore
setting state in this method will not trigger a re-render. Avoid introducing any side-effects or subscriptions in this method. We need to make sure async calls
for component initialization happened in componentDidMount() instead of componentWillMount() .
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If the props on the component are changed without the component being refreshed, the new prop value will never be displayed because the constructor
function will never update the current state of the component. The initialization of state from props only runs when the component is first created.
this.state = {
records: [],
inputValue: this.props.inputValue
};
render() { return
{this.state.inputValue}
}}
```jsx harmony
class MyComponent extends React.Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props)
this.state = {
record: []
}
}
render() {
return <div>{this.props.inputValue}</div>
}
}
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68. How do you conditionally render components?
In some cases you want to render different components depending on some state. JSX does not render false or undefined , so you can use conditional
short-circuiting to render a given part of your component only if a certain condition is true.
{name}
{address &&
{address}
}
)
```jsx harmony
const MyComponent = ({ name, address }) => (
<div>
<h2>{name}</h2>
{address
? <p>{address}</p>
: <p>{'Address is not available'}</p>
}
</div>
)
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When we spread props we run into the risk of adding unknown HTML attributes, which is a bad practice. Instead we can use prop destructuring with ...rest
operator, so it will add only required props.
For example,
{'ComponentB'}
```
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You can decorate your class components, which is the same as passing the component into a function. Decorators are flexible and readable way of modifying
component functionality.
/* title is a string that will be set as a document title WrappedComponent is what our decorator will receive when put directly above a component class as seen
in the example above */ const setTitle = (title) => (WrappedComponent) => { return class extends React.Component { componentDidMount() { document.title
= title }
render() {
return <WrappedComponent {...this.props} />
}
} } ```
Note: Decorators are a feature that didn't make it into ES7, but are currently a stage 2 proposal .
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There are memoize libraries available which can be used on function components.
For example moize library can memoize the component in another component.
```jsx harmony import moize from 'moize' import Component from './components/Component' // this module exports a non-memoized component
**Update:** Since React v16.6.0, we have a `React.memo`. It provides a higher order component which memoizes component unless the props
```js
const MemoComponent = React.memo(function MemoComponent(props) {
/* render using props */
});
OR
export default React.memo(MyFunctionComponent);
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React is already equipped to handle rendering on Node servers. A special version of the DOM renderer is available, which follows the same pattern as on the
client side.
```jsx harmony import ReactDOMServer from 'react-dom/server' import App from './App'
ReactDOMServer.renderToString() ```
This method will output the regular HTML as a string, which can be then placed inside a page body as part of the server response. On the client side, React
detects the pre-rendered content and seamlessly picks up where it left off.
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You should use Webpack's DefinePlugin method to set NODE_ENV to production , by which it strip out things like propType validation and extra warnings.
Apart from this, if you minify the code, for example, Uglify's dead-code elimination to strip out development only code and comments, it will drastically reduce
the size of your bundle.
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The create-react-app CLI tool allows you to quickly create & run React applications with no configuration step.
# Installation
$ npm install -g create-react-app
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The lifecycle methods are called in the following order when an instance of a component is being created and inserted into the DOM.
1. constructor()
2. static getDerivedStateFromProps()
3. render()
4. componentDidMount()
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76. What are the lifecycle methods going to be deprecated in React v16?
The following lifecycle methods going to be unsafe coding practices and will be more problematic with async rendering.
1. componentWillMount()
2. componentWillReceiveProps()
3. componentWillUpdate()
Starting with React v16.3 these methods are aliased with UNSAFE_ prefix, and the unprefixed version will be removed in React v17.
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The new static getDerivedStateFromProps() lifecycle method is invoked after a component is instantiated as well as before it is re-rendered. It can return
an object to update state, or null to indicate that the new props do not require any state updates.
This lifecycle method along with componentDidUpdate() covers all the use cases of componentWillReceiveProps() .
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The new getSnapshotBeforeUpdate() lifecycle method is called right before DOM updates. The return value from this method will be passed as the third
parameter to componentDidUpdate() .
This lifecycle method along with componentDidUpdate() covers all the use cases of componentWillUpdate() .
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Both render props and higher-order components render only a single child but in most of the cases Hooks are a simpler way to serve this by reducing nesting in
your tree.
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also
1. static methods
2. constructor()
3. getChildContext()
4. componentWillMount()
5. componentDidMount()
6. componentWillReceiveProps()
7. shouldComponentUpdate()
8. componentWillUpdate()
9. componentDidUpdate()
10. componentWillUnmount()
11. click handlers or event handlers like onClickSubmit() or onChangeDescription()
12. getter methods for render like getSelectReason() or getFooterContent()
13. optional render methods like renderNavigation() or renderProfilePicture()
14. render()
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A switching component is a component that renders one of many components. We need to use object to map prop values to components.
For example, a switching component to display different pages based on page prop:
```jsx harmony import HomePage from './HomePage' import AboutPage from './AboutPage' import ServicesPage from './ServicesPage' import ContactPage
from './ContactPage'
const PAGES = { home: HomePage, about: AboutPage, services: ServicesPage, contact: ContactPage }
return }
// The keys of the PAGES object can be used in the prop types to catch dev-time errors. Page.propTypes = { page:
PropTypes.oneOf(Object.keys(PAGES)).isRequired } ```
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The reason behind for this is that setState() is an asynchronous operation. React batches state changes for performance reasons, so the state may not
change immediately after setState() is called. That means you should not rely on the current state when calling setState() since you can't be sure what
that state will be. The solution is to pass a function to setState() , with the previous state as an argument. By doing this you can avoid issues with the user
getting the old state value on access due to the asynchronous nature of setState() .
Let's say the initial count value is zero. After three consecutive increment operations, the value is going to be incremented only by one.
(OR)
React may batch multiple setState() calls into a single update for performance. Because this.props and this.state may be updated asynchronously,
you should not rely on their values for calculating the next state.
The preferred approach is to call setState() with function rather than object. That function will receive the previous state as the first argument, and the
props at the time the update is applied as the second argument.
javascript // Correct this.setState((prevState, props) => ({ counter: prevState.counter + props.increment }))
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React.StrictMode is a useful component for highlighting potential problems in an application. Just like <Fragment> , <StrictMode> does not render any
extra DOM elements. It activates additional checks and warnings for its descendants. These checks apply for development mode only.
<React.StrictMode>
</React.StrictMode>
) } ```
In the example above, the strict mode checks apply to <ComponentOne> and <ComponentTwo> components only.
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Mixins are a way to totally separate components to have a common functionality. Mixins should not be used and can be replaced with higher-order
components or decorators.
One of the most commonly used mixins is PureRenderMixin . You might be using it in some components to prevent unnecessary re-renders when the props
and state are shallowly equal to the previous props and state:
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The primary use case for isMounted() is to avoid calling setState() after a component has been unmounted, because it will emit a warning.
if (this.isMounted()) {
this.setState({...})
}
Checking isMounted() before calling setState() does eliminate the warning, but it also defeats the purpose of the warning. Using isMounted() is a
code smell because the only reason you would check is because you think you might be holding a reference after the component has unmounted.
An optimal solution would be to find places where setState() might be called after a component has unmounted, and fix them. Such situations most
commonly occur due to callbacks, when a component is waiting for some data and gets unmounted before the data arrives. Ideally, any callbacks should be
canceled in componentWillUnmount() , prior to unmounting.
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Pointer Events provide a unified way of handling all input events. In the old days we had a mouse and respective event listeners to handle them but nowadays
we have many devices which don't correlate to having a mouse, like phones with touch surface or pens. We need to remember that these events will only work
in browsers that support the Pointer Events specification.
1. onPointerDown
2. onPointerMove
3. onPointerUp
4. onPointerCancel
5. onGotPointerCapture
6. onLostPointerCapture
7. onPointerEnter
8. onPointerLeave
9. onPointerOver
10. onPointerOut
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You can define component class which name starts with lowercase letter, but when it's imported it should have capital letter. Here low
```jsx harmony
class myComponent extends Component {
render() {
return <div />
}
}
While when imported in another file it should start with capital letter:
The component names should start with an uppercase letter but there are few exceptions to this convention. The lowercase tag names with
For example, the below tag can be compiled to a valid component,
```jsx harmony
render() {
return (
<obj.component/> // `React.createElement(obj.component)`
)
}
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Yes. In the past, React used to ignore unknown DOM attributes. If you wrote JSX with an attribute that React doesn't recognize, React would just skip it.
```jsx harmony
```html
<div />
This is useful for supplying browser-specific non-standard attributes, trying new DOM APIs, and integrating with opinionated third-party libraries.
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You should initialize state in the constructor when using ES6 classes, and getInitialState() method when using React.createClass() .
Note: React.createClass() is deprecated and removed in React v16. Use plain JavaScript classes instead.
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By default, when your component's state or props change, your component will re-render. If your render() method depends on some other data, you can tell
React that the component needs re-rendering by calling forceUpdate() .
component.forceUpdate(callback)
It is recommended to avoid all uses of forceUpdate() and only read from this.props and this.state in render() .
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92. What is the difference between super() and super(props) in React using ES6 classes?
When you want to access this.props in constructor() then you should pass props to super() method.
Using super(props) :
Using super() :
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You can simply use Array.prototype.map with ES6 arrow function syntax.
For example, the items array of objects is mapped into an array of components:
```jsx harmony
<tbody>
for (let i = 0; i < items.length; i++) {
<SomeComponent key={items[i].id} name={items[i].name} />
}
</tbody>
This is because JSX tags are transpiled into function calls, and you can't use statements inside expressions. This may change thanks to do expressions
which are stage 1 proposal .
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94. How do you access props in attribute quotes?
React (or JSX) doesn't support variable interpolation inside an attribute value. The below representation won't work:
```jsx harmony
But you can put any JS expression inside curly braces as the entire attribute value. So the below expression works:
```jsx harmony
<img className='image' src={'images/' + this.props.image} />
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If you want to pass an array of objects to a component with a particular shape then use React.PropTypes.shape() as an argument to
React.PropTypes.arrayOf() .
ReactComponent.propTypes = {
arrayWithShape: React.PropTypes.arrayOf(React.PropTypes.shape({
color: React.PropTypes.string.isRequired,
fontSize: React.PropTypes.number.isRequired
})).isRequired
}
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You shouldn't use curly braces inside quotes because it is going to be evaluated as a string.
```jsx harmony
Instead you need to move curly braces outside (don't forget to include spaces between class names):
```jsx harmony
<div className={'btn-panel ' + (this.props.visible ? 'show' : 'hidden')}>
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The react package contains React.createElement() , React.Component , React.Children , and other helpers related to elements and component
classes. You can think of these as the isomorphic or universal helpers that you need to build components. The react-dom package contains
ReactDOM.render() , and in react-dom/server we have server-side rendering support with ReactDOMServer.renderToString() and
ReactDOMServer.renderToStaticMarkup() .
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The React team worked on extracting all DOM-related features into a separate library called ReactDOM. React v0.14 is the first release in which the libraries are
split. By looking at some of the packages, react-native , react-art , react-canvas , and react-three , it has become clear that the beauty and
essence of React has nothing to do with browsers or the DOM.
To build more environments that React can render to, React team planned to split the main React package into two: react and react-dom . This paves the
way to writing components that can be shared between the web version of React and React Native.
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If you try to render a <label> element bound to a text input using the standard for attribute, then it produces HTML missing that attribute and prints a
warning to the console.
```jsx harmony
<label htmlFor={'user'}>{'User'}</label>
<input type={'text'} id={'user'} />
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If you're using React Native then you can use the array notation:
```jsx harmony
<button style={[styles.panel.button, styles.panel.submitButton]}>{'Submit'}</button>
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101. ### How to re-render the view when the browser is resized?
You can listen to the resize event in componentDidMount() and then update the dimensions ( width and height ). You should remove the listener in
componentWillUnmount() method.
componentWillMount() { this.updateDimensions() }
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102. ### What is the difference between setState() and replaceState() methods?
When you use setState() the current and previous states are merged. replaceState() throws out the current state, and replaces it with only what you
provide. Usually setState() is used unless you really need to remove all previous keys for some reason. You can also set state to false / null in
setState() instead of using replaceState() .
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The componentDidUpdate lifecycle method will be called when state changes. You can compare provided state and props values with current state and
props to determine if something meaningful changed.
Note: The previous releases of ReactJS also uses componentWillUpdate(object nextProps, object nextState) for state changes. It has been
deprecated in latest releases.
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104. ### What is the recommended approach of removing an array element in React state?
For example, let's create a removeItem() method for updating the state.
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It is possible with latest version (>=16.2). Below are the possible options:
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We can use <pre> tag so that the formatting of the JSON.stringify() is retained:
}}
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The React philosophy is that props should be immutable and top-down. This means that a parent can send any prop values to a child, but the child can't modify
received props.
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You can do it by creating ref for input element and using it in componentDidMount() :
render() { return (
109. ### What are the possible ways of updating objects in state?
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110. ### How can we find the version of React at runtime in the browser?
ReactDOM.render(
, document.getElementById('app') ) ```
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111. ### What are the approaches to include polyfills in your create-react-app ?
Create a file called (something like) polyfills.js and import it into root index.js file. Run npm install core-js or yarn add core-js and
import your specific required features.
Use the polyfill.io CDN to retrieve custom, browser-specific polyfills by adding this line to index.html :
In the above script we had to explicitly request the Array.prototype.includes feature as it is not included in the default feature set.
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You just need to use HTTPS=true configuration. You can edit your package.json scripts section:
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Create a file called .env in the project root and write the import path:
NODE_PATH=src/app
After that restart the development server. Now you should be able to import anything inside src/app without relative paths.
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You need to use setInterval() to trigger the change, but you also need to clear the timer when the component unmounts to prevent errors and memory
leaks.
```javascript componentDidMount() { this.interval = setInterval(() => this.setState({ time: Date.now() }), 1000) }
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116. ### How do you apply vendor prefixes to inline styles in React?
React does not apply vendor prefixes automatically. You need to add vendor prefixes manually.
```jsx harmony
```
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117. ### How to import and export components using React and ES6?
```jsx harmony import React from 'react' import User from 'user'
export default class MyProfile extends React.Component { render(){ return ( //... ) } } ```
With the export specifier, the MyProfile is going to be the member and exported to this module and the same can be imported without mentioning the name in
other components.
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React's reconciliation algorithm assumes that without any information to the contrary, if a custom component appears in the same place on subsequent
renders, it's the same component as before, so reuses the previous instance rather than creating a new one.
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You could use the ref prop to acquire a reference to the underlying HTMLInputElement object through a callback, store the reference as a class property, then
use that reference to later trigger a click from your event handlers using the HTMLElement.click method.
javascript this.inputElement.click()
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If you want to use async / await in React, you will need Babel and transform-async-to-generator plugin. React Native ships with Babel and a set of
transforms.
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122. ### What are the common folder structures for React?
There are two common practices for React project file structure.
One common way to structure projects is locate CSS, JS, and tests together, grouped by feature or route.
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React Transition Group and React Motion are popular animation packages in React ecosystem.
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It is recommended to avoid hard coding style values in components. Any values that are likely to be used across different UI components should be extracted
into their own modules.
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ESLint is a popular JavaScript linter. There are plugins available that analyse specific code styles. One of the most common for React is an npm package
called eslint-plugin-react . By default, it will check a number of best practices, with rules checking things from keys in iterators to a complete set of prop
types.
Another popular plugin is eslint-plugin-jsx-a11y , which will help fix common issues with accessibility. As JSX offers slightly different syntax to regular
HTML, issues with alt text and tabindex , for example, will not be picked up by regular plugins.
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126. ### How to make AJAX call and in which component lifecycle methods should I make an AJAX call?
You can use AJAX libraries such as Axios, jQuery AJAX, and the browser built-in fetch . You should fetch data in the componentDidMount() lifecycle
method. This is so you can use setState() to update your component when the data is retrieved.
For example, the employees list fetched from API and set local state:
```jsx harmony class MyComponent extends React.Component { constructor(props) { super(props) this.state = { employees: [], error: null } }
componentDidMount() { fetch('https://api.example.com/items') .then(res => res.json()) .then( (result) => { this.setState({ employees: result.employees }) },
(error) => { this.setState({ error }) } ) }
render() { const { error, employees } = this.state if (error) { return
Error: {error.message}
; } else { return (
{employees.map(employee => (
{employee.name}-{employee.experience}
))}
)
}
} } ```
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Render Props is a simple technique for sharing code between components using a prop whose value is a function. The below component uses render prop
which returns a React element.
```jsx harmony (
{`Hello ${data.target}`}
)}/> ```
Libraries such as React Router and DownShift are using this pattern.
React Router
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React Router is a powerful routing library built on top of React that helps you add new screens and flows to your application incredibly quickly, all while
keeping the URL in sync with what's being displayed on the page.
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React Router is a wrapper around the history library which handles interaction with the browser's window.history with its browser and hash histories. It
also provides memory history which is useful for environments that don't have global history, such as mobile app development (React Native) and unit testing
with Node.
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131. ### What are the <Router> components of React Router v4?
1. <BrowserRouter>
2. <HashRouter>
3. <MemoryRouter>
The above components will create browser, hash, and memory history instances. React Router v4 makes the properties and methods of the history
instance associated with your router available through the context in the router object.
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132. ### What is the purpose of push() and replace() methods of history ?
1. push()
2. replace()
If you think of the history as an array of visited locations, push() will add a new location to the array and replace() will replace the current location
in the array with the new one.
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133. ### How do you programmatically navigate using React Router v4?
There are three different ways to achieve programmatic routing/navigation within components.
The withRouter() higher-order function will inject the history object as a prop of the component. This object provides push() and replace()
methods to avoid the usage of context.
```jsx harmony import { withRouter } from 'react-router-dom' // this also works with 'react-router-native'
const Button = withRouter(({ history }) => ( { history.push('/new-location') }} > {'Click Me!'} )) ```
The <Route> component passes the same props as withRouter() , so you will be able to access the history methods through the history prop.
3. Using context:
```jsx harmony const Button = (props, context) => ( { context.history.push('/new-location') }} > {'Click Me!'} )
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The ability to parse query strings was taken out of React Router v4 because there have been user requests over the years to support different implementation.
So the decision has been given to users to choose the implementation they like. The recommended approach is to use query strings library.
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135. ### Why you get "Router may have only one child element" warning?
You have to wrap your Route's in a <Switch> block because <Switch> is unique in that it renders a route exclusively.
jsx harmony <Router> <Switch> <Route {/* ... */} /> <Route {/* ... */} /> </Switch> </Router>
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136. ### How to pass params to history.push method in React Router v4?
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A <Switch> renders the first child <Route> that matches. A <Route> with no path always matches. So you just need to simply drop path attribute as below
jsx harmony <Switch> <Route exact path="/" component={Home}/> <Route path="/user" component={User}/> <Route component=
{NotFound} /> </Switch>
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138. ### How to get history on React Router v4? Below are the list of steps to get history object on React Router v4,
1. Create a module that exports a history object and import this module across the project.
2. You should use the <Router> component instead of built-in routers. Import the above history.js inside index.js file:
```jsx harmony import { Router } from 'react-router-dom' import history from './history' import App from './App'
3. You can also use push method of history object similar to built-in history object:
history.push('/go-here') ```
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The react-router package provides <Redirect> component in React Router. Rendering a <Redirect> will navigate to a new location. Like server-side
redirects, the new location will override the current location in the history stack.
```javascript import React, { Component } from 'react' import { Redirect } from 'react-router'
export default class LoginComponent extends Component { render() { if (this.state.isLoggedIn === true) { return } else { return
{'Login Please'}
} } } ```
React Internationalization
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The React Intl library makes internalization in React straightforward, with off-the-shelf components and an API that can handle everything from formatting
strings, dates, and numbers, to pluralization. React Intl is part of FormatJS which provides bindings to React via its components and API.
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141. ### What are the main features of React Intl? Below are the main features of React Intl,
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142. ### What are the two ways of formatting in React Intl?
The library provides two ways to format strings, numbers, and dates:
jsx harmony <FormattedMessage id={'account'} defaultMessage={'The amount is less than minimum balance.'} />
2. Using an API:
```javascript const messages = defineMessages({ accountMessage: { id: 'account', defaultMessage: 'The amount is less than minimum balance.', } })
formatMessage(messages.accountMessage) ```
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The <Formatted... /> components from react-intl return elements, not plain text, so they can't be used for placeholders, alt text, etc. In that case, you
should use lower level API formatMessage() . You can inject the intl object into your component using injectIntl() higher-order component and then
format the message using formatMessage() available on that object.
```jsx harmony import React from 'react' import { injectIntl, intlShape } from 'react-intl'
const MyComponent = ({ intl }) => { const placeholder = intl.formatMessage({id: 'messageId'}) return {placeholder} }
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You can get the current locale in any component of your application using injectIntl() :
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React Testing
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Shallow rendering is useful for writing unit test cases in React. It lets you render a component one level deep and assert facts about what its render method
returns, without worrying about the behavior of child components, which are not instantiated or rendered.
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This package provides a renderer that can be used to render components to pure JavaScript objects, without depending on the DOM or a native mobile
environment. This package makes it easy to grab a snapshot of the platform view hierarchy (similar to a DOM tree) rendered by a ReactDOM or React Native
without using a browser or jsdom .
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ReactTestUtils are provided in the with-addons package and allow you to perform actions against a simulated DOM for the purpose of unit testing.
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Jest is a JavaScript unit testing framework created by Facebook based on Jasmine and provides automated mock creation and a jsdom environment. It's
often used for testing components.
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Let's write a test for a function that adds two numbers in sum.js file:
Finally, run yarn test or npm test and Jest will print a result:
React Redux
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Flux is an application design paradigm used as a replacement for the more traditional MVC pattern. It is not a framework or a library but a new kind of
architecture that complements React and the concept of Unidirectional Data Flow. Facebook uses this pattern internally when working with React.
The workflow between dispatcher, stores and views components with distinct inputs and outputs as follows:
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Redux is a predictable state container for JavaScript apps based on the Flux design pattern . Redux can be used together with React, or with any other view
library. It is tiny (about 2kB) and has no dependencies.
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1. Single source of truth: The state of your whole application is stored in an object tree within a single store. The single state tree makes it easier to keep
track of changes over time and debug or inspect the application.
2. State is read-only: The only way to change the state is to emit an action, an object describing what happened. This ensures that neither the views nor
the network callbacks will ever write directly to the state.
3. Changes are made with pure functions: To specify how the state tree is transformed by actions, you write reducers. Reducers are just pure functions
that take the previous state and an action as parameters, and return the next state.
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Instead of saying downsides we can say that there are few compromises of using Redux over Flux. Those are as follows:
1. You will need to learn to avoid mutations: Flux is un-opinionated about mutating data, but Redux doesn't like mutations and many packages
complementary to Redux assume you never mutate the state. You can enforce this with dev-only packages like redux-immutable-state-
invariant , Immutable.js, or instructing your team to write non-mutating code.
2. You're going to have to carefully pick your packages: While Flux explicitly doesn't try to solve problems such as undo/redo, persistence, or forms,
Redux has extension points such as middleware and store enhancers, and it has spawned a rich ecosystem.
3. There is no nice Flow integration yet: Flux currently lets you do very impressive static type checks which Redux doesn't support yet.
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mapStateToProps() is a utility which helps your component get updated state (which is updated by some other components):
mapDispatchToProps() is a utility which will help your component to fire an action event (dispatching action which may cause change of application state):
javascript const mapDispatchToProps = (dispatch) => { return { onTodoClick: (id) => { dispatch(toggleTodo(id)) } } }
It is recommended to always use the “object shorthand” form for the mapDispatchToProps .
Redux wraps it in another function that looks like (…args) => dispatch(onTodoClick(…args)), and pass that wrapper function as a prop to your component.
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Dispatching an action within a reducer is an anti-pattern. Your reducer should be without side effects, simply digesting the action payload and returning a new
state object. Adding listeners and dispatching actions within the reducer can lead to chained actions and other side effects.
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You just need to export the store from the module where it created with createStore() . Also, it shouldn't pollute the global window object.
```javascript store = createStore(myReducer)
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1. DOM manipulation is very expensive which causes applications to behave slow and inefficient.
2. Due to circular dependencies, a complicated model was created around models and views.
3. Lot of data changes happens for collaborative applications(like Google Docs).
4. No way to do undo (travel back in time) easily without adding so much extra code.
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160. ### Are there any similarities between Redux and RxJS?
These libraries are very different for very different purposes, but there are some vague similarities.
Redux is a tool for managing state throughout the application. It is usually used as an architecture for UIs. Think of it as an alternative to (half of) Angular.
RxJS is a reactive programming library. It is usually used as a tool to accomplish asynchronous tasks in JavaScript. Think of it as an alternative to Promises.
Redux uses the Reactive paradigm because the Store is reactive. The Store observes actions from a distance, and changes itself. RxJS also uses the Reactive
paradigm, but instead of being an architecture, it gives you basic building blocks, Observables, to accomplish this pattern.
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You can dispatch an action in componentDidMount() method and in render() method you can verify the data.
{'Loaded'}
:
{'Not Loaded'}
}}
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You need to follow two steps to use your store in your container:
1. Use mapStateToProps() : It maps the state variables from your store to the props that you specify.
2. Connect the above props to your container: The object returned by the mapStateToProps function is connected to the container. You can import
connect() from react-redux .
```jsx harmony import React from 'react' import { connect } from 'react-redux'
{this.props.containerData}
}}
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You need to write a root reducer in your application which delegate handling the action to the reducer generated by combineReducers() .
For example, let us take rootReducer() to return the initial state after USER_LOGOUT action. As we know, reducers are supposed to return the initial state
when they are called with undefined as the first argument, no matter the action.
const rootReducer = (state, action) => { if (action.type === 'USER_LOGOUT') { state = undefined }
In case of using redux-persist , you may also need to clean your storage. redux-persist keeps a copy of your state in a storage engine. First, you need to
import the appropriate storage engine and then, to parse the state before setting it to undefined and clean each storage state key.
const rootReducer = (state, action) => { if (action.type === 'USER_LOGOUT') { Object.keys(state).forEach(key => { storage.removeItem( persist:${key} ) })
state = undefined
}
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164. ### Whats the purpose of at symbol in the Redux connect decorator?
The @ symbol is in fact a JavaScript expression used to signify decorators. Decorators make it possible to annotate and modify classes and properties at
design time.
Without decorator:
```javascript import React from 'react' import * as actionCreators from './actionCreators' import { bindActionCreators } from 'redux' import { connect }
from 'react-redux'
With decorator:
```javascript import React from 'react' import * as actionCreators from './actionCreators' import { bindActionCreators } from 'redux' import { connect }
from 'react-redux'
@connect(mapStateToProps, mapDispatchToProps) export default class MyApp extends React.Component { // ...define your main app here } ```
The above examples are almost similar except the usage of decorator. The decorator syntax isn't built into any JavaScript runtimes yet, and is still
experimental and subject to change. You can use babel for the decorators support.
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165. ### What is the difference between React context and React Redux?
You can use Context in your application directly and is going to be great for passing down data to deeply nested components which what it was designed for.
Whereas Redux is much more powerful and provides a large number of features that the Context API doesn't provide. Also, React Redux uses context
internally but it doesn't expose this fact in the public API.
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Reducers always return the accumulation of the state (based on all previous and current actions). Therefore, they act as a reducer of state. Each time a Redux
reducer is called, the state and action are passed as parameters. This state is then reduced (or accumulated) based on the action, and then the next state is
returned. You could reduce a collection of actions and an initial state (of the store) on which to perform these actions to get the resulting final state.
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You can use redux-thunk middleware which allows you to define async actions.
Let's take an example of fetching specific account as an AJAX call using fetch API:
```javascript export function fetchAccount(id) { return dispatch => { dispatch(setLoadingAccountState()) // Show a loading spinner fetch( /account/${id} ,
(response) => { dispatch(doneFetchingAccount()) // Hide loading spinner if (response.status === 200) { dispatch(setAccount(response.json)) // Use a normal
function to set the received state } else { dispatch(someError) } }) } }
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Keep your data in the Redux store, and the UI related state internally in the component.
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The best way to access your store in a component is to use the connect() function, that creates a new component that wraps around your existing one. This
pattern is called Higher-Order Components, and is generally the preferred way of extending a component's functionality in React. This allows you to map state
and action creators to your component, and have them passed in automatically as your store updates.
```javascript import { connect } from 'react-redux' import { setVisibilityFilter } from '../actions' import Link from '../components/Link'
Due to it having quite a few performance optimizations and generally being less likely to cause bugs, the Redux developers almost always recommend using
connect() over accessing the store directly (using context API).
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170. ### What is the difference between component and container in React Redux?
Component is a class or function component that describes the presentational part of your application.
Container is an informal term for a component that is connected to a Redux store. Containers subscribe to Redux state updates and dispatch actions, and
they usually don't render DOM elements; they delegate rendering to presentational child components.
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Constants allows you to easily find all usages of that specific functionality across the project when you use an IDE. It also prevents you from introducing silly
bugs caused by typos – in which case, you will get a ReferenceError immediately.
javascript export const ADD_TODO = 'ADD_TODO' export const DELETE_TODO = 'DELETE_TODO' export const EDIT_TODO = 'EDIT_TODO'
export const COMPLETE_TODO = 'COMPLETE_TODO' export const COMPLETE_ALL = 'COMPLETE_ALL' export const CLEAR_COMPLETED =
'CLEAR_COMPLETED'
2. In reducers:
export default (state = [], action) => { switch (action.type) { case ADD_TODO: return [ ...state, { text: action.text, completed: false } ]; default: return state
} } ```
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173. ### What is the use of the ownProps parameter in mapStateToProps() and mapDispatchToProps() ?
If the ownProps parameter is specified, React Redux will pass the props that were passed to the component into your connect functions. So, if you use a
connected component:
```
The ownProps inside your mapStateToProps() and mapDispatchToProps() functions will be an object:
You can use this object to decide what to return from those functions.
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redux-saga is a library that aims to make side effects (asynchronous things like data fetching and impure things like accessing the browser cache) in
React/Redux applications easier and better.
It is available in NPM:
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Saga is like a separate thread in your application, that's solely responsible for side effects. redux-saga is a redux middleware, which means this thread can
be started, paused and cancelled from the main application with normal Redux actions, it has access to the full Redux application state and it can dispatch
Redux actions as well.
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177. ### What are the differences between call() and put() in redux-saga?
Both call() and put() are effect creator functions. call() function is used to create effect description, which instructs middleware to call the promise.
put() function creates an effect, which instructs middleware to dispatch an action to the store.
Let's take example of how these effects work for fetching particular user data.
```javascript function* fetchUserSaga(action) { // call function accepts rest arguments, which will be passed to api.fetchUser function. // Instructing
middleware to call promise, it resolved value will be assigned to userData variable const userData = yield call(api.fetchUser, action.userId)
// Instructing middleware to dispatch corresponding action. yield put({ type: 'FETCH_USER_SUCCESS', userData }) } ```
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Redux Thunk middleware allows you to write action creators that return a function instead of an action. The thunk can be used to delay the dispatch of an
action, or to dispatch only if a certain condition is met. The inner function receives the store methods dispatch() and getState() as parameters.
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179. ### What are the differences between redux-saga and redux-thunk ?
Both Redux Thunk and Redux Saga take care of dealing with side effects. In most of the scenarios, Thunk uses Promises to deal with them, whereas Saga
uses Generators. Thunk is simple to use and Promises are familiar to many developers, Sagas/Generators are more powerful but you will need to learn them.
But both middleware can coexist, so you can start with Thunks and introduce Sagas when/if you need them.
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Redux DevTools is a live-editing time travel environment for Redux with hot reloading, action replay, and customizable UI. If you don't want to bother with
installing Redux DevTools and integrating it into your project, consider using Redux DevTools Extension for Chrome and Firefox.
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181. ### What are the features of Redux DevTools? Some of the main features of Redux DevTools are below,
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182. ### What are Redux selectors and why to use them?
Selectors are functions that take Redux state as an argument and return some data to pass to the component.
1. The selector can compute derived data, allowing Redux to store the minimal possible state
2. The selector is not recomputed unless one of its arguments changes
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Redux Form works with React and Redux to enable a form in React to use Redux to store all of its state. Redux Form can be used with raw HTML5 inputs, but it
also works very well with common UI frameworks like Material UI, React Widgets and React Bootstrap.
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184. ### What are the main features of Redux Form? Some of the main features of Redux Form are:
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For example, you can add redux-thunk and logger passing them as arguments to applyMiddleware() :
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Relay is similar to Redux in that they both use a single store. The main difference is that relay only manages state originated from the server, and all access to
the state is used via GraphQL queries (for reading data) and mutations (for changing data). Relay caches the data for you and optimizes data fetching for you,
by fetching only changed data and nothing more.
Actions are plain JavaScript objects or payloads of information that send data from your application to your store. They are the only source of information for
the store. Actions must have a type property that indicates the type of action being performed.
For example, let's take an action which represents adding a new todo item:
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React Native
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188. ### What is the difference between React Native and React?
React is a JavaScript library, supporting both front end web and being run on the server, for building user interfaces and web applications.
React Native is a mobile framework that compiles to native app components, allowing you to build native mobile applications (iOS, Android, and Windows) in
JavaScript that allows you to use React to build your components, and implements React under the hood.
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React Native can be tested only in mobile simulators like iOS and Android. You can run the app in your mobile using expo app (https://expo.io) Where it syncs
using QR code, your mobile and computer should be in same wireless network.
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You can use console.log , console.warn , etc. As of React Native v0.29 you can simply run the following to see logs in the console:
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192. ### What is reselect and how it works?
Reselect is a selector library (for Redux) which uses memoization concept. It was originally written to compute derived data from Redux-like applications state,
but it can't be tied to any architecture or library.
Reselect keeps a copy of the last inputs/outputs of the last call, and recomputes the result only if one of the inputs changes. If the the same inputs are
provided twice in a row, Reselect returns the cached output. It's memoization and cache are fully customizable.
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Flow is a static type checker designed to find type errors in JavaScript. Flow types can express much more fine-grained distinctions than traditional type
systems. For example, Flow helps you catch errors involving null , unlike most type systems.
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Flow is a static analysis tool (static checker) which uses a superset of the language, allowing you to add type annotations to all of your code and catch an
entire class of bugs at compile time.
PropTypes is a basic type checker (runtime checker) which has been patched onto React. It can't check anything other than the types of the props being
passed to a given component. If you want more flexible typechecking for your entire project Flow/TypeScript are appropriate choices.
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1. Install font-awesome :
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React Developer Tools let you inspect the component hierarchy, including component props and state. It exists both as a browser extension (for Chrome and
Firefox), and as a standalone app (works with other environments including Safari, IE, and React Native).
1. Chrome extension
2. Firefox extension
3. Standalone app (Safari, React Native, etc)
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197. ### Why is DevTools not loading in Chrome for local files?
If you opened a local HTML file in your browser ( file://... ) then you must first open Chrome Extensions and check Allow access to file URLs .
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198. ### How to use Polymer in React? You need to follow below steps to use Polymer in React,
2. Create the Polymer component HTML tag by importing it in a HTML document, e.g. import it in the index.html of your React application:
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200. ### What is the difference between React and Angular? Let's see the difference between React and Angular in a table format.
React Angular
React is a library and has only the View layer Angular is a framework and has complete MVC functionality
AngularJS renders only on the client side but Angular 2 and above renders on the server
React handles rendering on the server side
side
React uses JSX that looks like HTML in JS which can be Angular follows the template approach for HTML, which makes code shorter and easy to
confusing understand
In React, data flows only in one way and hence debugging is In Angular, data flows both way i.e it has two-way data binding between children and
easy parent and hence debugging is often difficult
Note: The above list of differences are purely opinionated and it vary based on the professional experience. But they are helpful as base parameters.
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When the page loads, React DevTools sets a global named __REACT_DEVTOOLS_GLOBAL_HOOK__ , then React communicates with that hook during
initialization. If the website is not using React or if React fails to communicate with DevTools then it won't show up the tab.
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styled-components is a JavaScript library for styling React applications. It removes the mapping between styles and components, and lets you write actual
CSS augmented with JavaScript.
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Lets create <Title> and <Wrapper> components with specific styles for each.
// Create a