React Router Prework.md

React Router Prework

This gist contains a short assignment I'd like everyone to complete before our formal lesson. The prework involves reading some of the React Router documentation, and will allow us to keep the lesson more hands on.

Instructions

1. Fork this gist
2. On your own copy, go through the listed readings and answer associated questions
3. Comment a link to your forked copy on the original gist

Questions / Readings

Router Overview

React Router is a library that allows us to make our single page React applications mimic the behavior of multipage apps. It provides the ability to use browser history, allowing users to navigate with forward / back buttons and bookmark links to specific views of the app. Most modern sites use some form of routing. React Router exposes this functionality through a series of components. Let's start by looking at the overall structure of an app using router:

1. Take a look at the quick start page of the React Router docs. Take note of the syntax and organization of the page. No worries if this looks unclear right now! (nothing to answer here)

2. What package do we need to install to use React Router?

$ npm install --save react-router-dom

Router Components

React Router provides a series of helpful components that allow our apps to use routing. These can be split into roughly 3 categories:

• Routers
• Route Matcher
• Route Changers

Routers

Any code that uses a React-Router-provided component must be wrapped in a router component. There are lots of router components we can use, but we'll focus on one in particular. Let's look into the docs to learn more.

3. What is a <BrowserRouter />?

• a type of router that uses HTML5 history API to keep the UI and the URL in sync. It usually has best looking url but requires configuration.

4. Why would we use <BrowserRouter /> in our apps?

• It enables react router which allows us to view different pages with more ease.

Route Matchers

5. What does the <Route /> component do?

• Responsible for rendering UI when a path matches the current URL.
• It renders "inclusively".

6. How does the <Route /> component check whether it should render something?

• It render its children when the path matches the current URL.

7. What does the <Switch /> component do?

• Switch checks to see which path matches a URL so it renders the correct first match it sees (either or ).
• It renders "exclusively".

8. How does it decide what to render?

• Finds that first match and renders that exclusively.

Route Changers

9. What does the <Link /> component do? How does a user interact with it?

• Link is what inserts an "anchor" that links to the specified page.

10. What does the <NavLink /> component do? How does a user interact with it?

• NavLink is a type of 'link' that allows for styling through classNames.

11. What does the <Redirect /> component do?

• Usually used to override history stack with more accuracy and provides correct navigation.