5 Best Tips for Handling APIs in React

5 Best Tips for Handling APIs in React

One core of building modern web applications is working with APIs. For extracting React APIs, the process involves the following steps-fetching the data from the server, handling it, and ensuring a smooth user experience throughout this process. If you are new to working with React or just want to find efficient ways to do your work, this guide would be the best that will take you through the complete side of how to handle an API in a brief but clear way. 

Let's break down the five most helpful steps so you can see for yourself.

1. Get to know more about API calls in React 

When you dive into API work in the React without that, it's a must-know to know basic understanding of API fetching work. An API(Application Programming Interface) allows your app to talk with a server, resulting in retrieving data (GET request) or sending data (POST request). There is no convenient way to make HTTP requests in React, but you can use fetch API tools or even libraries like Axios. 

Consider an example below using the fetch API.

fetch('https://api.example.com/data') // API endpoint
  .then((response) => response.json()) // Convert the response to JSON
  .then((data) => {
    console.log(data); // Use the fetched data
  })
  .catch((error) => {
    console.error('Error fetching data:', error); // Handle errors
  });

• fetch(): A built-in JavaScript function that allows making HTTP requests.
• .then(): Used for the retrieval of the response.
• .catch(): Used when an unexpected error comes up (this could be due to the fact that the API has gone down or it is unreachable).

2. Data Fetching in React with useEffect Hook

In functional components in React, the memory is just fetching us some data using the useEffect hook. Running side effects like (API calls) right after a component has been rendered. 

Fetching data and displaying them into a component example:

import React, { useEffect, useState } from 'react';

function App() {
  const [data, setData] = useState([]); // State to hold fetched data

  useEffect(() => {
    // Fetch data from the API
    fetch('https://api.example.com/data')
      .then((response) => response.json())
      .then((data) => setData(data)) // Store data in state
      .catch((error) => console.error('Error fetching data:', error));
  }, []); // Empty dependency array ensures this runs only once

  return (
    

      {data.map((item) => (
        
{item.name}
 // Display fetched data
      ))}
    
  );
}

export default App;

• useState: This is a hook within React that allows the state variable to be created and saves the fetched data.
• useEffect: This hook is executed once the component renders. It is usually used for side effects like data-fetched.
• Dependency Array ([]): When adding an empty array, you can ensure that the API call runs exactly once during each mounting component.
• Error Handling: Errors are necessary to manage to ensure the app does not shut down its server in an unexpected situation, say the API is not available.

3. In a Separate File, Keep API Logic

As the application develops, you will find that copying the same API logic into separate components is not efficient and it makes the code difficult to maintain. Therefore, a good practice is to move where the API-related code is stored into a separate file. This keeps your components focused on rendering UI.

Here is an approach to organizing your API call in a separate file:

Step 1: Create an api.js File

// api.js
export const fetchData = async () => {
  try {
    const response = await fetch('https://api.example.com/data');
    if (!response.ok) {
      throw new Error('Network response was not ok');
    }
    return await response.json(); // Return the parsed JSON data
  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Error fetching data:', error);
    throw error; // Re-throw the error for further handling
  }
};

Step 2: Use the API Function in Your Component

import React, { useEffect, useState } from 'react';
import { fetchData } from './api'; // Import the function

function App() {
  const [data, setData] = useState([]);

  useEffect(() => {
    fetchData()
      .then((data) => setData(data))
      .catch((error) => console.error(error));
  }, []);

  return (
    

      {data.map((item) => (
        
{item.name}
      ))}
    
  );
}

export default App;

Advantages of This Approach:

Reusability: The act of using fetchData in multiple components from which code is duplicated can be overcome.
Readability: This will only show you how the component is focusing on the UI logic and be easy for you to get.

1. Manage loading and error states

When working with APIs, it is quite common that between requesting and getting a response, there are delays. A developer should manage these delays suitably, showing a loading indicator. In case something goes wrong, error messages should be displayed.

Here's how to handle loading and error states:

import React, { useEffect, useState } from 'react';
import { fetchData } from './api';

function App() {
  const [data, setData] = useState([]);
  const [loading, setLoading] = useState(true); // State for loading
  const [error, setError] = useState(null); // State for error messages

  useEffect(() => {
    fetchData()
      .then((data) => {
        setData(data); // Store the data
        setLoading(false); // Set loading to false
      })
      .catch((error) => {
        setError(error.message); // Set error message
        setLoading(false); // Stop loading
      });
  }, []);

  if (loading) return 
Loading...
; // Show loading indicator
  if (error) return 
Error: {error}
; // Show error message

  return (
    

      {data.map((item) => (
        
{item.name}
      ))}
    
  );
}

export default App;

• Loading State: Used to display a spinner or text to indicate that data is loading.
• Error State: Display error messages if an API call has failed.
• Conditioned Rendering: Employ if conditions to display diverse UI states, e.g., loading, error, or data.

5. Leveraging Libraries for Complex Needs

While fetch works pretty perfectly for basic API calls, you may find it lacking in some circumstances, like for caching, automatic retries, or polling. For such conditions, libraries can be made to do the work for example Axios, React Query, or SWR. 
This code shows using React Query.

Saw example, now implementing the following: 

Step 1: Install React Query

npm install react-query

Step 2: Fetch Data with React Query

import React from 'react';
import { useQuery } from 'react-query';

const fetchData = async () => {
  const response = await fetch('https://api.example.com/data');
  if (!response.ok) {
    throw new Error('Network response was not ok');
  }
  return response.json();
};

function App() {
  const { data, error, isLoading } = useQuery('fetchData', fetchData);

  if (isLoading) return 
Loading...
;
  if (error) return 
Error: {error.message}
;

  return (
    

      {data.map((item) => (
        
{item.name}
      ))}
    
  );
}

export default App;

React Query benefits:

• Caching: that is, it stores data locally, so reducing calls needlessly to the API.
• Error-handling: This automatically handles errors and retries.
• Ease: It limits the API boilerplate coding ok.

Conclusion

It is never too hard to handle APIs in React. Just gain full knowledge on the basics of fetch. The useEffect hook should be used to download APIs. Keep code clean: use separate files to organize the logics of APIs, and especially, implement loading and error states in order to create a totally improved user experience. For comprehensive use cases, libraries engaged, such as React Query or Axios, will greatly simplify working aspects such as APIs. Follow these steps and manage APIs in your React applications.