Networking
Many mobile apps need to load resources from a remote URL. You may want to make a POST request to a REST API, or you may need to fetch a chunk of static content from another server.
React Native provides the
Fetch API for your networking needs. Fetch will seem familiar if you have used
XMLHttpRequest
or other networking APIs before. You may refer to MDN's guide on
Using Fetch for additional information.
In order to fetch content from an arbitrary URL, you can pass the URL to fetch:
fetch('https://mywebsite.com/mydata.json');
Fetch also takes an optional second argument that allows you to customize the HTTP request. You may want to specify additional headers, or make a POST request:
fetch('https://mywebsite.com/endpoint/', {
method: 'POST',
headers: {
Accept: 'application/json',
'Content-Type': 'application/json',
},
body: JSON.stringify({
firstParam: 'yourValue',
secondParam: 'yourOtherValue',
}),
});
The above examples show how you can make a request. In many cases, you will want to do something with the response.
Networking is an inherently asynchronous operation. Fetch methods will return a
Promise that makes it straightforward to write code that works in an asynchronous manner:
function getMoviesFromApiAsync() {
return fetch('https://reactnative.dev/movies.json')
.then(response => response.json())
.then(responseJson => {
return responseJson.movies;
})
.catch(error => {
console.error(error);
});
}
You can also use the proposed ES2017 async
/await
syntax in a React Native app:
async function getMoviesFromApi() {
try {
let response = await fetch('https://reactnative.dev/movies.json');
let responseJson = await response.json();
return responseJson.movies;
} catch (error) {
console.error(error);
}
}
Don't forget to catch any errors that may be thrown by fetch
, otherwise they will be dropped silently.
import React from 'react';
import { FlatList, ActivityIndicator, Text, View } from 'react-native';
export default class FetchExample extends React.Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props);
this.state = { isLoading: true };
}
componentDidMount() {
return fetch('https://reactnative.dev/movies.json')
.then(response => response.json())
.then(responseJson => {
this.setState(
{
isLoading: false,
dataSource: responseJson.movies,
},
function() {}
);
})
.catch(error => {
console.error(error);
});
}
render() {
if (this.state.isLoading) {
return (
<View style={{ flex: 1, padding: 20 }}>
<ActivityIndicator />
</View>
);
}
return (
<View style={{ flex: 1, paddingTop: 20 }}>
<FlatList
data={this.state.dataSource}
renderItem={({ item }) => (
<Text>
{item.title}, {item.releaseYear}
</Text>
)}
keyExtractor={({ id }, index) => id}
/>
</View>
);
}
}
By default, iOS will block any request that's not encrypted using
SSL. If you need to fetch from a cleartext URL (one that begins with
http
) you will first need to add an App Transport Security exception. If you know ahead of time what domains you will need access to, it is more secure to add exceptions only for those domains; if the domains are not known until runtime you can disable ATS completely. Note however that from January 2017,
Apple's App Store review will require reasonable justification for disabling ATS. See
Apple's documentation for more information.
The
XMLHttpRequest API is built into React Native. This means that you can use third party libraries such as
frisbee or
axios that depend on it, or you can use the XMLHttpRequest API directly if you prefer.
var request = new XMLHttpRequest();
request.onreadystatechange = e => {
if (request.readyState !== 4) {
return;
}
if (request.status === 200) {
console.log('success', request.responseText);
} else {
console.warn('error');
}
};
request.open('GET', 'https://mywebsite.com/endpoint/');
request.send();
The security model for XMLHttpRequest is different than on web as there is no concept of
CORS in native apps.
React Native also supports
WebSockets, a protocol which provides full-duplex communication channels over a single TCP connection.
var ws = new WebSocket('ws://host.com/path');
ws.onopen = () => {
ws.send('something');
};
ws.onmessage = e => {
console.log(e.data);
};
ws.onerror = e => {
console.log(e.message);
};
ws.onclose = e => {
console.log(e.code, e.reason);
};
The following options are currently not working with fetch
redirect:manual
credentials:omit