Mastering ReactJS Error Boundaries: Best Practices for Error Handling

In this blog post, we will delve into the concept of Error Boundaries and its significance in React development. Through the use of code examples, we will provide a comprehensive understanding of this essential tool. When aiming to build robust applications, Error Boundaries are a crucial component that should not be overlooked. While React's Virtual DOM is an inherent feature, Error Boundaries are a library that can be easily installed using npm.

Content:

1. Introduction to Error Boundaries in React Development

2. The Importance of Error Boundaries for Creating Robust Applications

3. Practical Implementation of Error Boundaries: Code Examples and Best Practices

4. Leveraging Error Boundary Libraries: A Step-by-Step Guide for Installation and Usage

5. Conclusion: Enhancing React Development with Error Boundaries

Introduction to Error Boundaries in React Development

Error boundaries are our backup code when we are creating a component and at the time of render it will fail to render then our error boundaries comes into the picture. At the time of failing to load a component, we want to show something in UI to notify the user something is wrong. Error boundaries are like try-catch things but try-catch is imperative code and we always try to write declarative code in reactJS. so we use Error Boundaries for it.

The Importance of Error Boundaries for Creating Robust Applications

In the realm of ReactJS development, delivering a seamless user experience is paramount. When components fail to load and leave the screen blank, it creates a negative impact on users and can adversely affect businesses. To address this concern, we turn to Error Boundaries—a vital tool that allows us to gracefully handle component failures and present meaningful information on the user interface. In this blog post, we will explore the importance of Error Boundaries and how they contribute to an improved user experience.

Exploring Error Boundary Libraries: How to Install and Utilize Them

We will use react-error-boundary library for handling the errors. so first we need to install this library.

Prerequisite :

1. Install the Nodejs

2. Setup a basic reactJS project

Then we can install the react-error-boundary library.

npm i react-error-boundary

Practical Implementation of Error Boundaries: Code Examples and Best Practices

Using Error Boundaries in our project is not a difficult task. we just need to import the ErrorBoundary component from the library And wrap it on the target component.

"use client";

import { ErrorBoundary } from "react-error-boundary";

function Fallback({ error, resetErrorBoundary }) {
  // Call resetErrorBoundary() to reset the error boundary and retry the render.

  return (
    <div role="alert">
      <p>Something went wrong:</p>
      <pre style={{ color: "red" }}>{error.message}</pre>
    </div>
  );
}

<ErrorBoundary
  FallbackComponent={Fallback}
>
  <ExampleApplication />
</ErrorBoundary>;

In the above example, There is our component called ExampleApplication we have wrapped it on the ErrorBoundary component. Also, we have to pass a component to show the time of failure in the FallbackComponent prop.

There are some other tools provided by react-error-boundary library.

• onError: It is an Attribute to logging the error. We can pass a function to remove errors.

    "use client";
  
    import { ErrorBoundary } from "react-error-boundary";
  
    const logError = (error: Error, info: { componentStack: string }) => {
      // Do something with the error, e.g. log to an external API
    };
  
    const ui = (
      <ErrorBoundary FallbackComponent={ErrorFallback} onError={logError}>
        <ExampleApplication />
      </ErrorBoundary>
    );
  

  we can call a different API or retry on the same API by this function.

• withErrorBoundary: This is a HOC for the same purpose It takes all the same props as the ErrorBoundary component.

    "use client";
  
    import {withErrorBoundary} from 'react-error-boundary'
  
    const ComponentWithErrorBoundary = withErrorBoundary(ExampleComponent, {
      fallback: <div>Something went wrong</div>,
      onError(error, info) {
        // Do something with the error
        // E.g. log to an error logging client here
      },
    })
  

Conclusion: We can increase the quality of project by using this tool. This tool can make our project ready for facing the errors.

Thank you for reading the blog.❤️❤️please share your valuable suggestions.