What is a Context API in React? And How it Works?

Front end development ecosystem is developing at a fast pace today. New tools and libraries are released continuously. Business owners prefer the right tool that suits website or application development.

React JS is the most popular front-end development framework and manages a good name in the web development space.

Business owners wish to hire react js developers well-known in a javascript library. It is the best asset to create a fast, simple, and scale web application.

What Is Context API In React?

Context API is a component-based front-end framework that passes data from one component to another. It appears like passing data from parent to child components. Certain props like UI themes, language settings, local preferences, and others need different components with the application.

Context API comes to play to overcome issues and create a pathway of sharing data values in components. It is best for react js development to prevent prop via every app-level tree.

If you need to work with context API, you can get proper assistance from a developer and use them properly in the project.

Context API is an important structure in react framework to share specific data throughout different levels of application.

One of the factors you should know is how to use react context API with functional and class components?.

Developers bring importance to such a component for solving prop drilling. It is a great thing to move forward for application stability.

API is a new addition to react framework features and supports developers to create a wonderful project.

Here is Sample code for context API.

import React, { createContext } from "react";
const UserContext = createContext();
const UserProvider = ({ children }) => {
const [name, setName] = useState("Julia");
const [age, setAge] = useState(1);
const Birthday = () => setAge(age + 1);
return (
<UserContext.Provider value={{ name, age, Birthday }}>
{children}
</UserContext.Provider>
);
};
const withUser = (Child) => (props) => (
<UserContext.Consumer>
{(context) => <Child {...props} {...context} />}
</UserContext.Consumer>
);
export { UserProvider, withUser };
use them however you like
For example:
ReactDOM.render(
<UserProvider>
<App />
</UserProvider>,
document.getElementById("root")
);
export default withUser(LoginForm);

How it works with functional and class components:

Context API is a great addition to react js and helps developers eliminate challenges when passing data. It is the ideal structure to share the data with different components and never pass data via props.

Developers use it for special use cases. You may need to follow step by step guidelines to use API.

Build context:

If you want to work with context API, you must build context with the help of create context function.

import React from 'react';
const MyContext = React.createContext();
export default MyContext;

Create method() is important to build context and route default value to variables and pass them. Once creating context, you can use the two react components like provider and consumer.

React delivers a component and context object that reads a current value from the matching provider.

Make the provider:

After creating context, developers import context and use them to make a provider that calls MyProvider. In that scenario, developers initiate things with some values and share through value prop provider components.

Provider components for wrapping components and engage them with access to context. It is a great method to minimize redux.

class App extends Component {
render() {
return (
<MyProvider>
<div className="App">
<header className="App-header">
<img src={logo} className="App-logo" alt="logo" />
<h1 className="App-title">Welcome to my web store</h1>
</header>
<ProductList />
</div>
</MyProvider>
);
}
}

It is the right way to make a provider accessible to components. Developers wrap the app with API and eliminate the method.

Create consumer:

You can import context again, wrap components with it, and introduce context arguments in a component. It is simple to use context and props consistently.

Provider component is vital for you to wrap all components that acquire context. You will tell which component needs to consume data.

Consumer component lets react component to focus on context change. It is essential to make data available utilizing render prop.

const Cars = () => (
<MyContext.Consumer>
{context => (
<Fragment>
<h4>Cars:</h4>
{Object.keys(context.cars).map(carID => (
<Car
key={carID}
name={context.cars[carID].name}
price={context.cars[carID].price}
incrementPrice={() => context.incrementPrice(carID)}
decrementPrice={() => context.decrementPrice(carID)}
/>
))}
</Fragment>
)}
</MyContext.Consumer>
);

Use context:

Developers may also use react hooks in some time. React hooks allows developers to maintain data inside functional components and does not support class components to manage data.

React comes up with in-built hooks like useEffect, useState, useCallback, and more. Using context is the most important hook in react and helps developers connect and consume context.

The main role of useContext is to access a single argument.

const notes = useContext(NotesContext);

UseContext is an ideal hook for managing a process cleaner than a consumer component. It is the best asset for developers to boost application maintainability.

Using react context is better to allow properties to a component that nests deeply into the tree.

It is a reliable solution for a different instance of the same component.
Context API and hooks are a necessary part of real-world application.

Import useContext and useState hooks from react are easy to build context that calls auth context.

import React, { useState, useContext } from "react";
const AuthContext = React.createContext(undefined);

Functional component obtains children and delivers more components to deal with state data. So, you can use outstanding features available in react and meet react application requirements.

The development community experiences great improvement and new features in the framework to measure and optimize an application performance.

With the new concept, you have a great opportunity to work with projects confidently and enjoy functionality by default. You can prevent using third party libraries and replace redux with context API.

Developers manipulate the data within API and connect data in context provider to state and change parent state.

Conclusion:

Context API is a valuable component for an application development project. It is easier for global data to be available to components.

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed the article. Share your ideas and suggestion with us. So, we can improve our content.

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