React Context Basics

Basic Introduction

An App with Context

A basic app where we want to pass context of things like language everywhere.

class App extends Component {
  state = { langauge: "english" };

  onLanguageChange = (language) => this.setState({ language });

  render() {
    // return elements with onClick to change state
  }
}
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Getting Data Out of Context

// context/language/index.js
import React from 'react';

// creating context with default 'english'
export default React.createContext('english');

// inside of a component
import LanguageContext from 'path/to/file';
export default class Button extends React.Component {
    static contextType = LanguageContext;

    render() {
        const text = this.context === 'english' ? 'Submit' : 'Voorleggen';
        return <button>{text}</button>
    }
}
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To update the context, from a higher provider we could set...

class App extends Component {
    state = {langauge: 'english'};

    onLanguageChange = language => this.setState({language});

    render() {
        // return elements with onClick to change state
        <LanguageContext.Provider value={this.state.language}>
           <ChildThatContainsButton>
        </LanguageContext.Provider>
    }
}
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Gotchas Around Context

The big gotcha with the context is dealing with the value prop given to the provider.

Alternative Consumption of Data with Consumers

// context/language/index.js
import React from 'react';

// creating context with default 'english'
export default React.createContext('english');

// inside of a component
import LanguageContext from 'path/to/file';
export default class Button extends React.Component {
    render() {
        return <button>
            <LanguageContext.Consumer>
              {value => value === 'english' ? 'Submit' : 'Voorleggen'}
           </LanguageContext.Consumer>
        </button>
    }
}
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Using Multiple Consumers

// context/language/index.js
import React from 'react';

// creating context with default 'english'
export default React.createContext('english');

// inside of a component
import LanguageContext from 'path/to/file';
export default class Button extends React.Component {
    render() {
        return <button>
            <ColorContext.Consumer>
            {color => {
                <LanguageContext.Consumer>
                    {value => value === 'english' ? 'Submit' : 'Voorleggen'}
                </LanguageContext.Consumer>
            }}
           </ColorContext.Consumer>
        </button>
    }
}
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Context vs Redux