React Tutorial (original) (raw)
Last Updated : 06 Dec, 2025
React is a powerful JavaScript library for building fast, scalable front-end applications. Created by Facebook, it's known for its component-based structure, single-page applications (SPAs), and virtual DOM,enabling efficient UI updates and a seamless user experience.
**Note: The latest stable version of React is 19.1.0.
**Why Learn React?
Before React, front-end development struggled with:
- **Manual DOM Manipulation: Traditional JavaScript directly modified the DOM, slowing down the performance.
- **Complex State Management: Maintaining UI state became messy and hard to debug.
- **Tight Coupling in Frameworks: Frameworks like Angular introduced complex two-way data binding that made code harder to manage.
React solved these issues with a modern and modular approach.
Core Features
- **Virtual DOM: React updates only the changed parts of the DOM, resulting in faster rendering.
- **One-Way Data Binding: Ensures predictable and easy to debug data flow.
- **Component-Based Architecture: Breaks UI into reusable pieces, improving the code reusability and scalability.
**React Tutorial Prerequisites: HTML, CSS and JavaScript
React Hello World Program
To start with React, you need to install it. Follow the steps below to install it on your system.
After installing React, let's write your first React program. Here's a simple code example:
JavaScript `
import React from 'react';
function App() { return (
Hello World
export default App;
`
**In this example:
- **import React from 'react': Imports the React library to use React features in the component.
- **function App() { ... }: Defines a React functional component called App.
- **return ( ... ): The return statement renders HTML-like code (JSX) inside the component.
- ******: Displays a div element containing a heading (h1) with the text "Hello World."
Hello World
- **export default App: Exports the App component so it can be used in other files.
Getting Started with React: A Beginner’s Guide
This React tutorial provides you with a step-by-step learning journey for mastering React. You will start with React fundamentals and then move on to advanced topics. By the end of this tutorial, you will have a solid foundation in React and be ready to build scalable and maintainable web applications.
1. React Basics
Mastering React fundamentals, which will lay the groundwork for building dynamic and efficient applications.
- Introduction
- Import and Export
- JSX Introduction
- Components
- Conditional Rendering
- Virtual DOM
- Quiz 1: React Fundamentals
- PropTypes
- Prop Drilling
- React Lists
- Context API
- React Redux
- Quiz 2: Props and State Management
2. React Hooks
Different hooks to access and mange state and lifecycle in functional components.
- Hooks Introduction
- useState Hook
- useEffect Hook
- useRef Hook
- useMemo Hook
- useContext Hook
- Quiz: React Hooks
**3. React DOM Events
Handle DOM events in react like mouse, keyboard and form events.
- React Events Introduction
- onclickcapture Event
- onMouseDown Event
- onDoubleClick Event
- onSubmit Event
- onScroll Event
- onBlur Event
- Quiz: React DOM events
**4. Lifecycle of Components
The lifecycle of react components from creation, mounting and unmounting to manage the different phases.
- Introduction to lifecycle of components
- componentDidMount
- componentWillUnmount
- componentDidCatch
- componentDidUpdate
- shouldComponentUpdate
- Quiz: Lifecycle of Components
5. Routing in React
Manage navigation and routing within the single page application.
- React JS Router
- What is react-router-dom?
- React JS Types of Routers
- React-Router Hooks
- Learn Navigation and Routing in React Apps
- Link and NavLink components in React-Router-Dom
- Quiz: Routing in React
6. Packages for Enhancing React Application
Additional libraries for styling and state management to enhance your react projects.
7. React Interview Questions
React Interview questions categorised for different levels including most asked questions.
- Beginner Level Interview Questions
- Advanced Level Interview Questions
- 7 Most Asked ReactJS Interview Questions
8. React Complete References
Refer to the following articles to have a quick glance at all the important key concepts which are helpful while developing web applications using React
- Basic Concepts Reference
- Components Complete Reference
- Props Reference
- Events Reference
- Hooks Reference
- Advanced Guide Reference
If you want to have a simple, quick reference to commonly used React methods you can refer to ReactJS Cheat Sheet article
**Advantages of React
- **Composable: React allows building reusable components, improving code organization and maintainability.
- **Declarative: React’s declarative approach makes it easy to design interactive UIs by changing component states, with React handling the DOM updates.
- **SEO-Friendly: React’s Single Page Application (SPA) setup can be optimized for SEO by rendering and indexing content properly.
- **Large Community: React has a strong community and is widely used by major companies like Meta, Netflix, making it easier to find resources and support.
- **Easy to Learn: React uses JSX, which resembles HTML, making it simple for developers with basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
- **Easy Debugging: React’s unidirectional data flow simplifies debugging by ensuring that data moves in a clear, predictable direction within components.
If you want to learn more refer to this article React JS Advantages
Approach to Learn React
You can complete this React tutorial in approximately 8 weeks with consistent learning and hands-on practice.
- In Week 1, you'll cover React basics, including components, JSX syntax, and topics like conditional rendering, prop-types, React lists, and React Redux for state management.
- Week 2 focuses on React Hooks, where you'll learn about useState, useEffect, useRef, and useContext for state management and performance optimization in functional components.
- In Week 3, you’ll learn how to handle DOM events like clicks, keyboard input, and form submissions in React.
- Week 4 dives into the lifecycle of components, explaining lifecycle methods in class components and their equivalent in functional components using hooks.
- Week 5 will teach you React Routing with react-router-dom, managing navigation and routes in single-page applications.
- In Week 6, you'll explore important React packages like Redux, Material UI, React-Bootstrap, Tailwind, and Framer Motion for styling and animations.
- Week 7 covers React interview questions for different levels, helping you prepare for job interviews.
- In Week 8, you'll apply everything you've learned by building real-world React projects, consolidating your knowledge.
By the end of 8 weeks, you’ll be proficient in React and ready to build dynamic web applications.