React: First Steps
Tags: react
Published: 2018-04-02 09:21:28

---
title: React: First Steps
published: true
description: If you are new to React, be sure to read this article!
tags: React, React.js, React JS.
---

[**ReactJS**](https://reactjs.org/) is a javascript library for building UIs. Although it's nowhere strictly defined, the idea with React is to follow the component-based ideology. Its declarative views make **the code more predictable and easier to debug**.

At Kolosek, we use ReactJS combined with [**Webpack**](https://webpack.js.org/) as a bundle manager, [**Redux**](https://redux.js.org/) combined with [**ImmutableJS**](https://facebook.github.io/immutable-js/) for app state management, and some other libraries that make the developers life easier, like [**Gulp**](https://gulpjs.com/) for handling build and deployment (and some other) tasks.

It can be used both as a simple static webpage, or it can be rendered on the server, for example, [**NodeJS**](https://nodejs.org/en/). React applications rendered on servers are commonly called [**universal apps**](https://scotch.io/tutorials/react-on-the-server-for-beginners-build-a-universal-react-and-node-app) but are also sometimes referred as isomorphic. 

In this article, I'll focus on React solely, as Redux and ImmutableJS will be documented separately.

## React and JSX
In React you'll widely see parts of code like these:

```javascript
    const element = <h1>Hello, world!</h1>;
```

This is neither a javascript string or HTML, but it's called **JSX**, a syntax extension for javascript. It's widely used inside render methods for React, to render dynamic parts of web pages. JSX produces React "elements" and is, for example, widely used when [rendering something based on the condition](https://kolosek.com/react-jsx-conditions/). 

To use JSX inside render method, it needs to be wrapped inside **{}** :

```javascript
    <img src={user.avatarUrl}></img>
```

It's safe to use JSX, as it prevents injection attacks, so there's no worry there'll be some code injection. 

You'll also definitely want to render a list of items or loop through some object at a certain point when developing. This is also done using JSX, and like for conditions, I have [a separate article that focuses on rendering lists solely](https://kolosek.com/react-jsx-loops/).
ALWAYS REMEMBER TO USE THE KEYS FOR LISTS!

**The keys** help React identify which items have changed, are added, or are removed. The keys must be unique and shouldn't be changeable for proper rendering of React elements in the list.

## Component-based Organization and Props

React recommends **component-based organization of the code**. All logically separable parts of the code, like input field, a button, a form, a list etc. should be written in separate components.

All the simple parts of the code should be written as **dummy** components (often also called **pure**), meaning that they will only render based on parameters passed to them, and won't have an idea on any app logic.

Here are two examples of a dummy component:

```javascript
    function Button({ onClick, text }) {
        return (
            <button
                onClick={onClick}
            >
                {text}
            </button>
        );
    }
```

You can pass the whole object as [props](https://kolosek.com/react-props-basic/) using {...objectName} syntax; this will pass every key-value from objectName as separate prop.

```javascript
    function InputField(props) {
        // props is an object containing keys like onChange, placeholder, etc...
        // 
        return (
            <input
                {...props}
            />
        );
    }
```

If you want to extract only some of the props, you can do it like this:

```javascript
    function InputField(props) {
        const {
            onChange,
            placeholder,
            value,
        } = props;
        return (
            <input
                onChange={onChange}
                placeholder={placeholder}
                value={value}
            />
        );
    }
```

**Now, how can these dummy components be used?** Basically, you can use them by importing them into the file (using a relative path to the file) and then calling them in the render method. Here's an example:

```javascript
    import React, { Component } from 'react';
    import InputField from '../components/InputField.js';
    import Button from '../components/Button.js';
    class Login extends Component {
        ...
        render() {
            return (
                <InputField
                    onChange={this.handleChange('email')}
                    placeholder={"Email"}
                    type="text"
                    value={this.state.email}
                />
                <InputField
                    onChange={this.handleChange('password')}
                    placeholder={"Password"}
                    type="password"
                    value={this.state.password}
                />
                <Button
                    onClick={this.login}
                >
                    {'Login'}
                </Button>
            );
        }
        ...
    }
```

Did you notice that I wrote this component the other way than earlier ones? That's because it's not a **dummy** one but will contain some more logic in it. Components written this way are called smart components or **classes** and can have other methods bound to it besides render method. You can find out more about dummy and smart components [here](https://jaketrent.com/post/smart-dumb-components-react/).

Now, what exactly are **props**?

You can think of a component as a function (remember the dummy examples? They even use the standard function definition!). Basically, props are the **parameters passed to that function when it's called**. Anything can be a prop: a string, boolean, number, some other React element, undefined...

The most important thing to keep in mind about the props is that they are **read-only**, meaning that they can't be changed in the component receiving them and shouldn't be mutated. You can read more on how to pass props in [our series on how to properly use props in React](https://kolosek.com/react-props-basic/).

## React State
In the previous chapter I've mentioned that props are parameters passed to the component. **State**, on the other hand, is private and its main purpose is to manipulate it within the component. The state is available *only* to classes, and is used to handle some internal changes (like updating some text stored based on onChange event):

```javascript
    import React, { Component } from 'react';
    import InputField from '../components/InputField.js';
    ...
    class Login extends Component {
        // We define initial component state in constructor function
        constructor() {
            super();
            this.state = {
                email: '',
            }
        }
        // Handling state change is done by using this.setState function
        handleChange = (event) => {
            this.setState(() => {
                return {
                    email: event.target.value,
                };
            });
        }
        
        ...
        render() {
            return (
                <InputField
                    onChange={this.handleChange}
                    placeholder={"Email"}
                    type="text"
                    value={this.state.email}
                />
                {
                    ...
                }
            );
        }
        ...
    }
```

The state is initialized in the **constructor**, a special method called before initial component render. All the custom methods (like handleChange in the previous example) should be written using arrow function, so they're automatically bound to a component.

You might notice that some other people use this.setState like this:

```javascript
    this.setState({
        email: event.target.value,
    });
```

This is a bad way to update the state! The state is updated asynchronously, and if there's need to update the state multiple times in a row, it'll just batch all the setStates done this way. Use [functional way to update the state](https://medium.freecodecamp.org/functional-setstate-is-the-future-of-react-374f30401b6b) instead, as described in other examples.

Now, let's look at another example:

```javascript
    import React, { Component } from 'react';
    import InputField from '../components/InputField.js';
    ...
    class Login extends Component {
        constructor() {
            super();
            this.state = {
                email: '',
                password: '',
            }
        }
        
        handleChange = (type) => (event) => {
            this.setState(() => {
                const stateUpdates = {};
                stateUpdates[type] = event.target.value;
                return stateUpdates;
            });
        }
        
        ...
        render() {
            return (
                <InputField
                    onChange={this.handleChange("email")}
                    placeholder={"Email"}
                    type="text"
                    value={this.state.email}
                />
                <InputField
                    onChange={this.handleChange("password")}
                    placeholder={"Password"}
                    type="password"
                    value={this.state.password}
                />
                {
                    ...
                }
            );
        }
        ...
    }
```

There's one rule when defining custom methods: **never bind it in a render method**. Above example shows a way how to do it correctly. If the method is bound in the render method, the new function will be created each time the component is rerendered. I have actually covered this in [React Guide Props - Part I](https://kolosek.com/react-props-basic/).

## Component Lifecycle
Methods handling the component lifecycle are inherited from Component (yes, that Component you're importing at the top of the file). The most detailed description of lifecycle methods can be found [here](http://busypeoples.github.io/post/react-component-lifecycle/).

An important thing to remember is that in the case of universal apps (apps rendered on the server) browser related global variables like a window, localStorage, etc. can only be used after the component was mounted (i.e. they'll only be available in **componentDidMount**).

## Styling React Components
Although React itself doesn't support directly using CSS for styling but is more oriented to inline jsx styles (passing style object prop to an HTML tag), this approach is not used that often.

Many, if not all, of the real-life projects you'll ever see, some [CSS/SCSS loader](https://github.com/webpack-contrib/css-loader) is set up, so you can use styling like [CSS columns](https://kolosek.com/css-columns/) with ease. This is configured via Webpack.

## Routing in React
For routing, I use **[React Router v4](https://github.com/ReactTraining/react-router)**. Its documentation is pretty straightforward and is pretty short, so it's a must-read. Basically, I use Router and Routes to define routes, Link component for linking pages and Redirect component to redirect to some other page on a certain action.


### MATERIALS

* Of course, don't forget to check [**React Documentation**](https://reactjs.org/docs/installation.html) for a more detailed description of the framework.
* Check [**AirBnB JavaScript style guide**](https://github.com/airbnb/javascript) for a bit more details on how to properly write React (and JavaScript in general) code. I don't use all the rules defined yet, but the more (meaningful) rules the better.
* Check [**Official React Tutorial**](https://reactjs.org/tutorial/tutorial.html).
* I have a [**series on how to use JSX**](https://kolosek.com/react-jsx-loops/).
* Learn more about props [**here**](https://kolosek.com/react-props-basic/).


### Practice ideas:

* Initiate a new react app using [**Create React App**](https://github.com/facebookincubator/create-react-app).
* Try creating few very simple components: wrapper around input tag with a label, a button that'll be gray and have its text changed once disabled, an avatar.
* Try creating a bit more complex component: a form that will have email, password, first and last name fields and a button (reuse dummy components you wrote in the previous step!)
* Validate the form: email, password, first and last name fields should be filled in before button becomes enabled. Email should also be of a valid format.
* Once the form is valid and login button is pressed, pop up an alert with values user filled in.
* Congratulations! You've written your first ever React component! Next, you'll learn to use React with Redux.

This article is originally published on [Kolosek Blog](https://kolosek.com/react-first-steps/).