API Calls
TechIdea Experts
Author & Reviewer
Fetching data from an external server or API and displaying it in React.
Learning Goals
Video Tutorial Coming Soon
Our expert team is currently recording the visual guide for API Calls.
The Core Concept
Almost all real-world applications need to fetch external data. In React, we combine `useState` (to store the fetched data) and `useEffect` (to trigger the fetch operation when the component loads). We typically use the native browser `fetch` API or a library like `axios`. It is important to handle different states during an API call: a loading state, an error state, and the successful data state.
Visual guide
React concept flow
A simple original diagram to connect the lesson idea with real project flow.
Code & Implementation
import { useState, useEffect } from 'react';
function UserList() {
const [users, setUsers] = useState([]);
const [isLoading, setIsLoading] = useState(true);
useEffect(() => {
fetch('https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/users')
.then(response => response.json())
.then(data => {
setUsers(data);
setIsLoading(false);
});
}, []);
if (isLoading) return <p>Loading users...</p>;
return (
<ul>
{users.map(user => (
<li key={user.id}>{user.name}</li>
))}
</ul>
);
}Expected Output
- Leanne Graham - Ervin Howell - Clementine Bauch
Movie Finder
Hands-on practice task
The Challenge
Create an application that searches a public API for movies and displays a grid of movie posters and titles.
Helpful Hints
- •Use a free API like OMDB API. You will need to register for a free API key.
- •Create an input field for the search term.
- •When the user clicks 'Search', fetch the data based on the input term and update your movies array state.
Quick Knowledge Check
Can I make the useEffect callback function async?
Continue Learning
Next steps after this lesson
Create an application that searches a public API for movies and displays a grid of movie posters and titles.
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