React III: Advanced data management

Learning Goals

• Understand the component lifecycle
• Understand class component lifecycle methods
• Implement conditional rendering
• Implement PropTypes and understand why they are useful

Vocabulary

• lifecycle method a set of methods found in the parent class Component that fire at different points during the component lifecycle
• PropTypes a library we use to validate the data type of props coming into a component; allows for more specific, helpful error messages

The Component Lifecycle

Did you ever learn about the butterfly lifecycle when you were a kid? It starts out as an egg, hatches into a caterpillar, eats a bunch, wraps itself into a cocoon, emerges as a butterfly? Well, React components have lifecycles, too.

A React component goes through 3 distinct phases during its lifecycle:

• Mounting (aka Birth)
• Updating (aka Growth and Change)
• Unmounting (aka Death)

Dan Abramov tweeted a diagram that helps explain some of the React 16 lifecycle methods.

We’ll take a deeper look into some of these methods in this lesson. There are a few that you will probably use throughout your time at Turing. This simplified diagram of the same lifecycle is what we will talk about in depth (created here):

Mounting Phase

constructor() && super()

Let’s talk about the first methods we see in a class-based React component.

constructor() {
  super();
  this.state = {
    name: ''
  };
}

Per the docs, the constructor() method is called once, and before the component is mounted onto the DOM. It is the first and only function called automatically whenever a class-based component is created.

Any class in JavaScript has this rule: Within the constructor, it’s important to immediately call super() in cases where our class extends any other class that also has a defined constructor.

Invoking super() will run the constructor method of the parent class and allows it to initialize itself. This invocation allows this to have a defined value within the constructor. Constructors are great for setting up our component and initializing state. However, this is NOT a place you should consider making a network request.

This does not mean that every class NEEDS a constructor. The default constructor is used if you aren’t modifying it. There is even an eslint rule for detecting the use of a default constructor. Basically, if you don’t need to initialize state or bind any methods, you don’t need to implement a constructor for your component! It will get called automatically behind the scenes. Magic!

Where are my props?

If, in your constructor, you need access to that component’s props, you must pass these as an argument down through super().

constructor(props) {
  super(props);
  this.state = {
    name: props.initialName
  };
}

Without passing the props down into this method, this.props will return as undefined within the constructor method.
This is bad because the constructor method is the first function called when your component is instantiated as a class - knowing the context of this from the get go can be a big deal.

Per the docs, class components should always pass props to the base constructor (this is why we pass them into the super() method). However there is some debate as to why this is suggested, since React will automatically set the props for you once the constructor has fired.

render()

Now that our component has been initialized and configured, we can begin rendering some content/elements on the page. This is the lifecycle method that React developers are most familiar with. It is the one lifecycle method that exists across all phases of a React component.

Managing Children Components and Mounting

The React Element that has been rendered by the initial render() may possibly have a number of children that need to be rendered as well. This is where each of those children kickoff their own lifecycle methods… constructor(), render(), and componentDidMount(). Once all the children have been successfully created, initialized and mounted, the parent’s componentDidMount() method will finally be called.

componentDidMount()

Per the docs, componentDidMount() is invoked “immediately after a component is mounted.” When componentDidMount() is called, this signalizes that the component - and all its sub-components - have rendered properly. This is also the go-to location to fire off an API call or network request (BEST PRACTICE). This is a great blog post that discusses how and where to fetch data in React.

Updating Phase

componentDidUpdate()

This method is invoked after updating occurs. It is NOT called for the initial render. Per the docs: “Use this as an opportunity to operate on the DOM when the component has been updated. This is also a good place to do network requests as long as you compare the current props to the previous props (e.g. a network request may not be necessary if the props have not changed).” For example, if the userId in your new props is not the same as the one that is being currently displayed, you could fetch the new user.

Unmounting Phase

componentWillUnmount()

This is invoked just once, before the component is unmounted and destroyed. According to the docs, it’s a good place to cancel any open network requests, kill any timers, and do any other necessary cleanup tasks. You should NOT called setState here because the component will not re-render.

Workshop On Our IdeaBox

Okay. Why do we care about any of this?

To be honest, you probably won’t be using much more than constructor(), super(), render(), and componentDidMount() in Mod 3. However, it’s good to be aware that other lifecycle methods exist.

We’re going to implement componentDidMount() in our IdeaBox.

Setup Your Front End

If you want, you can re-clone your IdeaBox into a new directory. Follow the steps here:

git clone https://github.com/turingschool-examples/react-iii-ideabox
cd react-iii-ideabox
npm i
npm start

Setting Up Your Back End

We’re also going to be running a back end server, which will function as our API! Lucky you, we’ve written up the backend for you, complete with documentation and friendly error messages.

Clone down the repo - but NOT inside your existing IdeaBox repository!

git clone https://github.com/turingschool-examples/ideabox-api.git ideabox-api
cd ideabox-api
npm i
node server.js

Note that the frontend should be running on localhost:3000 and the backend should be running on localhost:3001.

Once you are set up, you can visit http://localhost:3001/api/v1/ideas and you should see a brief list of ideas!

Implement Getting Data from the Backend

Okay. Let’s refactor our IdeaBox so that we are consuming data from our API!

As we’ve noted before, we should use our catch somehow in order to display an error if something goes wrong. Try stopping your backend server and see what happens. Your catch should before firing (because the Promise rejected). Let’s do something with that error.

Let’s edit our intial state in our App.js:

// App.js

this.state = {
  ideas: [],
  error: ''
};

Then inside of your catch, set the error message in state. Now, let’s do something with that information! Such as displaying it to the user.

Conditional Rendering

We don’t want an error message showing all the time. So … let’s make use of conditional rendering! Let’s take a look at our current render() method:

// App.js

render() {
  return (
    <main className="App">
      <h1>IdeaBox</h1>
      <Form addIdea={this.addIdea} />
      <Ideas
        ideas={this.state.ideas}
        removeIdea={this.removeIdea}
      />
    </main>
  );
}

If we wanted to add an h2 that would show up if we had an error, what would we write?

// App.js

render() {
  return (
    <main className="App">
      <h1>IdeaBox</h1>
      <Form addIdea={this.addIdea} />
      {this.state.error && <h2>{this.state.error}</h2>}
      <Ideas
        ideas={this.state.ideas}
        removeIdea={this.removeIdea}
      />
    </main>
  );
}

Wowwwww okay. What does that syntax even mean?

First of all, this is JavaScript (we can tell because of the curly brackets). The first statement of this.state.error will evaluate to a truthy or a falsy value (an empty string is falsy). The code after the double ampersand is what will render if we get past the first statement.

It’s a shorthand way of saying, “If there is an error in state, render the error inside h2 tags!”

Neato!

Notice that we are only conditionally rendering the one part of the render that is contingent upon whether or not an error is in state.

We’re not rendering two different versions of the App. We just have the one, and one line will show up only if there is an error stored in state.

PropTypes

PropTypes allow you to specify what type of props you are expecting in a certain component. This is also known as “typechecking”.

Many people have moved to implementing languages like TypeScript or Flow for this exact purpose, but even without any additional technologies, the prop-type module lets you establish a safety net with very little effort.

Let’s say you declare a component <Card title={this.state.title}/>. Here, your component is expecting a prop called title and you (probably) expect it to be a string. If you define that value within your propTypes object and it comes in as something else - say for example the API you are consuming has changed and now you have an array of strings - you will get a helpful warning message in your console.

Previously, PropTypes was built into the React library itself, however it has since been extracted into its own module. You can install it like any other module.

$ npm install prop-types

In React, PropTypes are declared like this:

// Card.js

import React from 'react';
import PropTypes from 'prop-types';
import './Card.css';

const Card = ({ id, title, description, removeIdea, isFavorite }) => {
  const favoriteClass = isFavorite ? 'favorite' : 'card';

  return (
    <section className={favoriteClass}>
      <h3>{ title }</h3>
      <p>{ description }</p>
      <button onClick={() => removeIdea(id)}>🗑</button>
    </section>
  );
};

export default Card;

Card.propTypes = {
  title: PropTypes.string
};

The error you will see if the component gets something besides a string would look something like this:

Warning: Failed prop type: Invalid prop `name` of type `array` supplied to `Card`, expected `string`.

Without using PropTypes, you would have seen a vague error when the Component failed to render. With PropTypes, we can see that the error was that we were receiving an array when we expected a string.

Class propTypes

Check out a complete list of propTypes and examples of usage here.

By default, all props specified within the Class.propTypes object will be considered optional. There are many instances where your component will not function correctly without that particular prop. To add a validation that will fire an error message if a prop does not show up at all, simply add .isRequired to the end of the propType declaration.

Card.propTypes = {
  title: PropTypes.string.isRequired
};

You can also be more generic - let’s say you need a prop to come in but it doesn’t matter what type it is as long as it’s there. Instead of specifying a particular JS primitive you can use .any.

Card.propTypes = {
  title: PropTypes.any.isRequired
};

DefaultProps

Just like when writing functions, React also allows us to provide a default value for props. defaultProps let you ensure that a value will be passed through. This helps eliminate some of the incessant ternaries that either render the prop or an empty string, for instance.

const Card = ({ id, title, description, removeIdea, isFavorite }) => {
  const favoriteClass = isFavorite ? 'favorite' : 'card'

  return (
    <section className={favoriteClass}>
      <h3>{ title }</h3>
      <p>{ description }</p>
      <button onClick={() => removeIdea(id)}>🗑</button>
    </section>
  );
};

export default Card;

Card.propTypes = {
  id: PropTypes.number.isRequired,
  title: PropTypes.string.isRequired,
  description: PropTypes.string.isRequired,
  removeIdea: PropTypes.func.isRequired,
  isFavorite: PropTypes.bool.isRequired,
};

Card.defaultProps = {
  isFavorite: true
};

Required Homework

Suggested homework

References

• React Lifecycle Docs
• The React Life Cycle
• Understanding Component Lifecycle
• Lifecycle Simulators
• Dan Abramov’s Twitter chart/convo on modern React lifecycle methods
• Error handling in React 16
• Update on Async Rendering
• React v16.3.0: New Lifecycles