ReactJS with Redux: Part 1 – Building a Fundamental Understanding with Examples

Welcome to Part 1 of our comprehensive guide to learning ReactJS with Redux. In this series, we will cover the fundamental concepts of ReactJS and how to integrate it with Redux, a powerful state management library. Whether you are a beginner or have some experience with ReactJS, this guide will help you build a solid foundation.

Before we dive into the nitty-gritty details, let’s start with a brief introduction to ReactJS and Redux.

Introduction to ReactJS

ReactJS is a JavaScript library developed by Facebook for building user interfaces. It allows you to create reusable UI components that update efficiently and automatically in response to changes in data. ReactJS follows a component-based architecture, which makes it easier to manage complex UIs.

Introduction to Redux

Redux is a predictable state container for JavaScript apps. It helps you manage the state of your application in a predictable way, making it easier to understand, debug, and test. Redux works well with ReactJS and is often used in conjunction with it to handle the application’s state.

Getting Started with ReactJS and Redux

Now that we have a basic understanding of ReactJS and Redux, let’s dive into some practical examples to solidify our knowledge. In this section, we will cover the following topics:

• Setting up a ReactJS project
• Creating a simple React component
• Integrating Redux into our React app
• Managing state with Redux
• Dispatching actions and updating the state

Setting up a ReactJS project

To get started with ReactJS, we need to set up a new project. We can use create-react-app, a command-line tool that sets up a new React project with all the necessary dependencies and configuration files.

npx create-react-app my-app
cd my-app
npm start

Creating a simple React component

Once we have our project set up, we can start creating our first React component. In the src folder, create a new file called MyComponent.js and add the following code:

import React from 'react';

const MyComponent = () => {
  return (
    <div>
      <h1>Hello, world!</h1>
    </div>
  );
}

export default MyComponent;

Integrating Redux into our React app

Now that we have our basic React component, let’s integrate Redux into our app. First, we need to install the redux and react-redux libraries:

npm install redux react-redux

Next, let’s create a new file called store.js in the src folder and add the following code:

import { createStore } from 'redux';
import rootReducer from './reducers';

const store = createStore(rootReducer);

export default store;

Managing state with Redux

With Redux set up, we can now start managing the state of our application. Let’s create a new file called actions.js in the src folder and add the following code:

export const increment = () => {
  return {
    type: 'INCREMENT'
  };
}

export const decrement = () => {
  return {
    type: 'DECREMENT'
  };
}

Next, let’s create a new file called reducers.js in the src folder and add the following code:

const initialState = {
  count: 0
};

const rootReducer = (state = initialState, action) => {
  switch (action.type) {
    case 'INCREMENT':
      return {
        count: state.count + 1
      };
    case 'DECREMENT':
      return {
        count: state.count - 1
      };
    default:
      return state;
  }
}

export default rootReducer;

Dispatching actions and updating the state

Finally, let’s update our MyComponent.js file to dispatch actions and update the state:

import React from 'react';
import { connect } from 'react-redux';
import { increment, decrement } from './actions';

const MyComponent = ({ count, increment, decrement }) => {
  return (
    <div>
      <h1>Count: {count}</h1>
      <button onClick={increment}>Increment</button>
      <button onClick={decrement}>Decrement</button>
    </div>
  );
}

const mapStateToProps = state => ({
  count: state.count
});

export default connect(mapStateToProps, { increment, decrement })(MyComponent);

And that’s it! We have successfully integrated Redux into our React app and created a simple counter component. We can now dispatch actions and update the state using Redux.

In Part 2 of this series, we will explore more advanced concepts such as middleware, async actions, and combining reducers. Stay tuned for the next installment!