Handling Loading and Errors Gracefully
Learn to design user-friendly data-fetching experiences in React by managing loading and error states declaratively.
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Fetching data is rarely instantaneous, and users shouldn’t face an empty screen while waiting.
When a page loads data—say a list of users or orders—the worst experience is a silent, empty screen, followed by a sudden jump of content or a cryptic error. Users don’t know whether the app is working, failing, or finished. In React, we avoid that uncertainty by treating loading, error, and success as first-class UI states and rendering each path declaratively. A good React app communicates clearly: when it’s loading, when something has gone wrong, and when the data is ready.
Main concept: Declarative UI states
When working with async data, our component usually cycles through three distinct visual states:
Loading: The request is in progress.
Error: The request failed or data couldn’t be loaded.
Success: ...