When and when not to use Redux LogRocket Blog

When and when not to use Redux LogRocket Blog

It saves React developers from reinventing the wheel and writing repetitive code. With Redux, each component pushes its data to the global store and influences the app state as well as listens to the changes initiated by other components. The difference that Redux makes to data flows in the app is illustrated in the diagram below.

This can be useful in larger, more complex applications where the state is too complicated to be managed solely within a single component. In short, when you are building a big application with lots of states, you will need Redux. Redux is a global state management library allowing components to share states with each other. At a high level, redux is a global state management library for JavaScript apps. React Redux will offer us a central store to hold all the React application states.

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Sometimes it shares the input in the form of props with other components that rely on the changed data. If the process involves only components having parent-child relationships with the component initiating a state change, the logic is simple. You will realize, you are writing some boilerplate code with actions and reducers.

Because we want the header to have the switch that changes color. Now we can safely move the button from the Body to the Header. In this rewrite, we will move the color state into the App component. In this article, we will walk over React-Redux and how to use it. We will use it to simplify the complex state management of membership and authentication flows. You are no longer obligated to turn to Redux as the default method for handling state in your React applications.

Do I need to have a particular build tool to use Redux?​

You will need React Redux when you build a large application with lots of components. It is needed when each of these components want to access a shared state. Every local state can start with a default value, and a method to update it. In react apps, every component can have its own local state. React will re-render the view every time the state changes. React Context is crafted for the purpose of sharing data globally within a tree of React components.

Before we dive into when to use Redux, let’s quickly recap what Redux is. Redux is a predictable, maintainable, and scalable state container for JavaScript applications. It helps you manage global state by providing a single source of truth for your application’s state. Redux is strict about how code should be organized, which makes it easier for someone with knowledge of Redux to understand the structure of any Redux application. This generally makes it easier to maintain, and also helps you segregate your business logic from your component tree.

Redux Toolkit Membership Site Example

By following this pattern, code maintenance, testing and debugging is made easier. Since the functions are small and isolated, that makes them reusable thus they can be copied and pasted anywhere they are needed. The most common usage is with React and React Native, but there are bindings available for Angular, Angular what is redux and why it matters 2, Vue, Mithril, and more. Redux simply provides a subscription mechanism which can be used by any other code. Learn when to use Redux in your React application, and how it can help you manage state and props efficiently. For medium- and large-scale apps, debugging takes more time then actually developing features.

The main advantage of React web apps over static websites is their interactivity. The React app interface responds to user actions with changes in the interface. Sometimes those changes take place right in the UI component the user interacts with. But sometimes they affect multiple components and get reflected in different parts of the app. Managing state when building complex tasks was quite a pain in the neck until Redux came along.

Debugging is easy in Redux

Inspired by Flux an application design pattern, Redux is designed to manage the state of data in JavaScript applications. Although it’s used chiefly with React, you can use Redux with different frameworks and libraries such as jQuery, Angular, or Vue. This is a perfect time to pull the shopping cart state of our Checkout component up into Redux. Once this data is in Redux, the Checkout and NavBar components can individually connect to Redux with the state and dispatch functions they need. For example, consider a chat application that needs to update in real-time. Redux helps you manage the chat state, notify components of new messages, and ensure that the UI remains consistent across the application.

• A common question many people have when using the Redux state management library with React is when to start using it.
• This will generate a fresh copy of React along with the required files.
• The Redux store serves as the definitive source of truth, encompassing the complete current state of the entire application.
• This generally makes it easier to maintain, and also helps you segregate your business logic from your component tree.

It creates a tangible data structure to represent the state of your app that you can read from and write to. That way, you can see otherwise invisible states while you’re working with them. With Redux, the state of your application is kept in a store, and each component can access any state that it needs from this store. If you’re just getting started with Redux, this video is a great resource for beginners.

What is Redux?

Redux Toolkit is the new recommended pattern of working with Redux. Now let’s move on to a more hands-on guide for using Redux in your React apps. When we run this app, we are now controlling the color of the body from the header section. We now have a header component for displaying the header. We want to put the button we had in the body section in the header.

In conclusion, Redux is a powerful tool for managing the state of a complex React application, but it is not always necessary and there are alternative options available. These alternatives can be easier to understand and work with, and they can also offer improved performance in certain situations. We’ve been presented with this powerful tool and set of patterns for managing state in our apps. Then with wild abandon we plaster our entire app with reducers, actions, connected components, and tangled dispatch functions.

Why don’t you need Redux anymore?

If your application becomes so complex that you are confused about where state is stored or how state changes, then it is a good time to learn Redux. It is most powerful if we know when to use it and we have a grasp of what our other options are. Our apps, especially SPAs, can get really complex really quickly. Much of our app state is local state and as such ought to be managed by a component.