React is a widely used JavaScript library that was launched in 2011. It was created by developers at Facebook, and it is primarily used for frontend development. React uses the component-based approach, which ensures to help you build components that possess high reusability.
React is well known for developing and designing complex mobile user interfaces and web applications.
What is the meaning of the component-based architecture of React?
In React, components are foundations used to build user interfaces for applications. With the component-based system in place, all of the individual entities become completely reusable and independent of each other. This means that rendering the application is easy and not dependent on the other components of the UI.
Rendering is an important aspect of React as every single component must be rendered. This is done using the render() function. Once the function is called, it returns an element that represents a DOM component.
It is also possible to render more than one HTML element at a time by enclosing the HTML tags and passing them through the render function.
States form to be one of the vital aspects of React. It is considered as a source of data or objects that control aspects such as component behavior and rendering. In React, states are used to easily create dynamic and interactive components.
Props are the shorthand name given to properties in React. Props are read-only components that are immutable in nature. In an application, props follow a hierarchy that is passed down from parents to child components. However, the reverse is not supported. This is done to ensure that there is only a single directional flow in data at all times.
An arrow function is used to write an expression in React. It allows users to manually bind components easily. The functionality of arrow functions can be very useful when you are working with higher-order functions particularly.
The create-react app in React is a simple command-line interface (CLI) that is used in the creation of React applications, which have no build configuration.
All tools are pre-configured when using the CLI, and this allows users to focus on the code more than on dependencies to develop the application.
The following syntax is used to start a simple project in React:
A virtual DOM is a simple JavaScript object that is the exact copy of the corresponding real DOM. It can be considered as a node tree that consists of elements, their attributes, and other properties. Using the render function in React, it creates a node tree and updates it based on the changes that occur in the data model. These changes are usually triggered by users or the actions caused by the system.
Next up among these React interview questions, you need to take a look at some of the important features that React offers.
JSX is the abbreviation of JavaScript XML. It is a file that is used in React to bring out the essence of JavaScript to React and use it for its advantages.
It even includes bringing out HTML and the easy syntax of JavaScript. This ensures that the resulting HTML file will have high readability, thereby relatively increasing the performance of the application.
No, browsers cannot read JSX files directly. It can only read the objects provided by JavaScript. Now, to make a browser read a JSX file, it has to be transformed to a JavaScript object using JSX transformers, and only then it can be fed into the browser for further use in the pipeline.
Higher-order components (HOCs) are a widely used technique in React for applying concepts that involve the component reusability logic. They are not a native part of the React API and allow users to easily reuse the code and bootstrap abstraction.
HOCs are also used to allow simple sharing of behaviors across all of the components in React, adding more advances to the efficiency and functioning of the application.
Redux is used to store the state of the application in a single entity. This simple entity is usually a JavaScript object. Changing states can be done by pushing out actions from the application and writing corresponding objects for them that are used to modify the states.
Whenever there are actions performed in React, such as hovering the mouse or pressing a key on the keyboard, these actions trigger events. Events then perform set activities as a response to these triggers. Handling an event in React is very similar to that in the DOM architecture.
How is routing in React different from conventional routing?
Differences between the conventional routing and the routing in React can be shown using the following aspects:
Pages: Each view is considered as a new file in conventional routing while it is considered as a single HTML entity in React.
Navigation: In conventional routing, users have to move across web pages for viewing. In React, the views are not refreshed as objects are re-issued to create new views.
Yes, any AJAX library, such as Axios and jQuery AJAX, can be used with React easily. One important thing is to maintain the states of the components, and here too, the props are passed from the parents to the child components.
Child components still cannot send back props to parents, and this factor greatly increases rendering efficiency when dynamic data is considered.
Synthetic events in React are objects that act as cross-browser wrappers, allowing for the use of native events. This is done to ensure that a variety of browsers can run the API and that the event contains all properties.
Stateful components are entities that store the changes that happen and place them into the memory. Here, the state can be changed, alongside storing information such as past, current, and future changes.
‘Refs’ is short for references in React. Refs are used to store a reference to a single React element or a React component. This is later returned using the render function.
Controlled components in React refer to the components that have the ability to maintain their state. The data is completely controlled by the parent component, and the current value is fetched by making use of props. This is done to notify about any change that occurs when using callbacks.
A router is very much necessary in React as it is used to manage multiple routes whenever a user types in a URL. If the route is present in the router for that corresponding URL, then the user is taken to the particular route.
Pure components are singular entities that are written in React. They are fast and simple to write and have the ability to replace a component that has only the render() function. This is done to ensure that the performance of the application is good and that the code is kept simple at the same time.
What is the difference between cloneElement and createElement in React?
In React, cloneElement is primarily used to clone an element and pass it to new props directly. Whereas, createElement is the entity that JSX gets compiled into. This is also used to create elements in React.
Next up on this top React interview questions and answers blog, take a look at the use of the second argument.
The StrictMode component when used would benefit users immensely while creating new codebases to understand the components being used.
However, it can fit well in debugging as well because it will help solve the problem faster when it is wrapped with other components, which could be causing the problem.
Next up on these interview questions on React JS, you have to understand how to speed up rendering.
What would you do if your React application is rendering slowly?
The cause of slow rendering in React is mostly because of the number of re-render operations, which are sometimes unnecessary. There are two main tools provided by React to help users here:
memo(): This is used to prevent all of the unnecessary re-rendering carried out by the function components.
PureComponent: This is used to ensure that the unnecessary re-rendering of class components is avoided.