How To Handle Event Handling And Routing In React

In this article, we are going to see how to handle events and routing in React.

In my previous article, I discussed components and props that you can refer to here and I discussed state maintenance in React here.

React Event Handling

As we know events are a core concept for every dynamic web application and handling events is one of the important concepts needed to know in any language.

Event handling in React refers to the process of responding to user interactions with a React application, such as clicking a button or submitting a form. In React, events are handled by providing event handlers, which are functions that are executed in response to specific events.

To handle an event in React, you associate an event handler with the element that should respond to the event. The event handler takes an event object as an argument, which provides information about the event, such as its type, target, and position.

For example, to handle a button click event in React, you might write the following code,

function handleClick(event) {
    console.log('Button was clicked');
}

return (
    <button onClick={handleClick}>Click me</button>
);

In this example, the handleClick function is the event handler for the onClick event of the button. When the button is clicked, the handleClick function will be executed and log a message to the console.

It's important to note that event handlers in React should always be bound to the component instance to ensure that this refers to the component instance within the handler. This can be done using the bind method or arrow functions.

React Routing

Routing in React refers to the process of determining which component to render based on the current URL. This is typically used to create single-page applications (SPAs) where the URL changes without reloading the page, giving the illusion of navigating between different pages.

React Router is a popular library for implementing routing in React applications. With React Router, you define a set of routes that map URLs to components, and the library takes care of rendering the correct component when the URL changes.

For example, you might have a route that maps the URL / to the Home component:

import { Route, BrowserRouter as Router } from 'react-router-dom';

function App() {
  return (
    <Router>
      <Route exact path="/" component={Home} />
    </Router>
  );
}

In this example, the Route component is used to define the route and the component prop is used to specify the component to render for that route. The BrowserRouter component is used to wrap the routes and provide the routing functionality.

When the URL changes to /, the Home component will be rendered. If the URL changes to /about, for example, a different component could be rendered to show information about the application.

React Router also provides features for dynamic routing, where the components can be rendered with dynamic parameters based on the URL, and for protected routes, where access to certain routes can be restricted based on the user's authentication status.

Thanks for reading my article.