Boosting React App Performance with React Query and Router Query Parameters

In modern web development, efficient data fetching has become a crucial aspect of building high-performance React applications. With React Query, developers can easily fetch, cache, and update data in real-time, greatly enhancing the user experience. In this article, we'll explore how to leverage React Query with React Router Query Parameters to further optimize data fetching and make our applications more performant. Additionally, we'll take a closer look at React Query Builder, a powerful tool that can help us build complex queries with ease.

The Power of React Query:

React Query is a popular library for data fetching in React applications. It provides a simple and intuitive API that makes it easy to fetch and manage data, including caching and invalidation. React Query also includes support for real-time data updates via web sockets, which is crucial for building responsive and dynamic user interfaces.

One of the key features of React Query is its ability to manage cache keys, which can help reduce the amount of unnecessary data requests. When a query is executed with a particular set of parameters, React Query automatically generates a unique cache key for that query. If the same query is executed again with the same parameters, React Query will return the cached data instead of making a new request. This can greatly improve the performance of our applications, especially when dealing with large datasets.

Incorporating React Query with React Router Query Parameters:

React Router is a popular library for routing in React applications. It provides a declarative API for defining routes and mapping them to components. React Router Query Parameters is an extension of React Router that allows us to define dynamic parameters in our routes. These parameters can be used to pass data between different components and pages in our application.

By combining React Query with React Router Query Parameters, we can further optimize our data fetching. For example, we can define a route that includes query parameters, such as a search query. When the user navigates to this route, we can use React Query to fetch the data based on the query parameters. If the user changes the search query, React Query will automatically fetch the updated data and update the cache accordingly.

Building Complex Queries with React Query Builder:

In some cases, we may need to build more complex queries with multiple parameters and filters. This can quickly become a daunting task, especially if we need to manage the cache keys manually. Fortunately, React Query includes a powerful tool called React Query Builder that can help us build complex queries with ease.

React Query Builder provides a user-friendly interface for defining queries with multiple parameters and filters. We can easily add or remove parameters, and the tool will automatically generate the cache key for each query. This can save us a lot of time and effort, and make our code much more readable and maintainable.

Case Study:

Let's consider an example where we need to fetch data from a remote API based on user input. We'll use React Router Query Parameters to pass the search query to our component, and React Query to manage the data fetching and caching.

First, we'll define a route in our React Router configuration that includes a dynamic search query parameter:

<Route path="/search/:query" component={SearchResults} />

Next, we'll define our SearchResults component and use React Query to fetch the data:

import { useQuery } from 'react-query';

import { useParams } from 'react-router-dom';

function SearchResults() {

  const { query } = useParams();

  const { data, isLoading, error } = useQuery(['search', query], () =>

    fetch(`https://example.com/api/search?q=${query}`).then(res => res.json())

  );

  if (isLoading) {

    return <div>Loading...</div>;

  }

  if (error) {

    return <div>Error: {error.message}</div>;

  }

Now that we've seen how to use React Query to fetch data in an effective way, let's move on to another important topic related to React Router and query parameters.

Fetching Data with React Query and React Router Query Parameters

To start, let's take a look at how we can use React Query to fetch data based on query parameters passed through React Router. First, we'll need to install React Query and React Router if they aren't already installed. We can do this with npm by running the following command:

npm install react-query react-router-dom

Once we have these packages installed, we can set up a new query in our component that will fetch data based on the query parameters passed through React Router. Here's an example of what that might look like:

import { useQuery } from 'react-query';

import { useLocation } from 'react-router-dom';

function MyComponent() {

  const location = useLocation();

  const { search } = location;

  const { data, isLoading, error } = useQuery(['myData', search], () =>

    fetch(`/api/myData${search}`).then((res) => res.json())

  );

  if (isLoading) return <div>Loading...</div>;

  if (error) return <div>Error: {error.message}</div>;

  return (

    <div>

      {data.map((item) => (

        <div key={item.id}>{item.name}</div>

      ))}

    </div>

  );

}

In this example, we are using the useLocation hook from React Router to get the current location object, and then using the search property to get the query parameters. We then pass the ['myData', search] array as the query key to useQuery, which will ensure that the query is refetched whenever the query parameters change. Finally, we fetch the data from our API using the fetch function and return it as JSON.

Using the Query Builder for More Powerful Queries

While the above example is a good start, we can make our data fetching even more powerful with the query builder in React Query. The query builder allows us to define a set of parameters that can be used to modify our query and pass them in as part of the query key. Let's take a look at an example:

import { useQuery } from 'react-query';

import { useLocation } from 'react-router-dom';

function MyComponent() {

  const location = useLocation();

  const { search } = location;

  const { data, isLoading, error } = useQuery(

    ['myData', search, { limit: 10, offset: 20 }],

    (key, search, params) => {

      const urlParams = new URLSearchParams(search);

      urlParams.set('limit', params.limit);

      urlParams.set('offset', params.offset);

      return fetch(`/api/myData?${urlParams.toString()}`)

        .then((res) => res.json());

    }

  );

  if (isLoading) return <div>Loading...</div>;

  if (error) return <div>Error: {error.message}</div>;

  return (

    <div>

      {data.map((item) => (

        <div key={item.id}>{item.name}</div>

      ))}

    </div>

  );

}

In this example, we have demonstrated how to use React Query to fetch data from an API and display it in a component. However, there may be cases where you need to include query parameters in the URL to fetch specific data. This is where React Router comes into play.

Conclusion

React Query and React Router are two powerful libraries that can be used together to create efficient and dynamic React applications. React Query makes it easy to fetch and manage data from APIs, while React Router enables you to navigate between different pages and pass query parameters in the URL.

By combining these libraries, you can build complex applications that respond quickly and provide a seamless user experience. Additionally, the query builder API provided by React Query allows you to customize the behavior of your queries, adding further flexibility to your application.

Overall, React Query and React Router are valuable tools to have in your React development toolbox. With their intuitive APIs and comprehensive documentation, they make it easy to create fast and dynamic applications that can easily adapt to changing requirements.

For more information check out this React Query blog from CopyCat.