Learning REST API using Axios by building Simple CRUD Applications using React

Building web applications that interact with a backend server is a common task for many developers. In this article, we'll learn how to use Axios and React to create a simple CRUD (create, read, update, and delete) application that communicates with a RESTful API.

First, let's discuss the basics of REST and how it works. REST (Representational State Transfer) is an architectural style for building web services that use HTTP requests to POST (create), PUT (update), GET (read), and DELETE (delete) data. In other words, RESTful APIs are built on the principles of REST architecture and expose a set of endpoints that clients can interact with.

Axios is a popular JavaScript library for making HTTP requests. It's easy to use and has a convenient syntax for handling request and response data. In this tutorial, we'll be using Axios to handle all of the API calls in our React application.

React is a JavaScript library for building user interfaces. It allows developers to build reusable components that can be easily managed and rendered on the client-side. By using React, we can create a responsive and dynamic user interface that updates in real-time as the user interacts with the application.

To get started, we'll first need to set up a basic React application using create-react-app, a tool that makes it easy to create new React projects. Once the project is set up, we can start building the CRUD application.

To perform the CRUD operations, we'll be using a simple RESTful API that exposes endpoints for creating, reading, updating, and deleting data. We'll be using axios to send the API requests and handle the responses.

For the create operation, we'll use the POST endpoint to send a request to the server with the data for the new resource. The server will then create the resource and return a response with the new resource's data.

For the read operation, we'll use the GET endpoint to retrieve a list of all resources or a specific resource by its ID.

For the update operation, we'll use the PUT endpoint to send a request to the server with the updated data for the resource. The server will then update the resource and return a response with the updated resource's data.

For the delete operation, we'll use the DELETE endpoint to delete a specific resource by its ID.

By building a CRUD application using Axios and React, we've learned how to use these popular tools to interact with a RESTful API. We've covered the basics of performing the four main CRUD operations and seen how easy it is to build a responsive and dynamic user interface using React. This is a foundation for you to start creating more complex applications that communicate with an external server or your own restful api.

In conclusion, React and Axios are both powerful tools that can be used together to build web applications that communicate with a backend server via a RESTful API. By learning how to use them to create a CRUD application, you now have a solid foundation for building more complex applications that can interact with a server and manage data.