Unlock the Power of RTK Query: Efficient Data Fetching and Caching for Your Web App
As web development continues to evolve, managing state and data fetching has become a critical aspect of building scalable and efficient applications. The Redux team has introduced RTK Query, an experimental library that leverages the power of Redux to simplify data fetching and caching. In this article, we’ll delve into the features and benefits of RTK Query and explore how it can revolutionize your web development workflow.
What is RTK Query?
RTK Query is built on top of Redux Toolkit (RTK) and utilizes Redux under the hood. This means you don’t need to be an expert in Redux to use RTK Query, but having a solid understanding of both will help you harness its full potential. RTK Query provides advanced setup options to handle your fetching and caching needs in a flexible and efficient manner.
Why Choose RTK Query?
Despite being in its alpha stage, RTK Query already offers a simple and efficient solution for data caching and fetching. Its agnosticism makes it easy to integrate with any framework capable of using Redux, such as Vue.js, Svelte, or Angular. Additionally, RTK Query is built with TypeScript, providing first-class types support.
Fetching and Caching Data with RTK Query
To get started with RTK Query, you need to set up your project and create a service definition that fetches data from your public API. RTK Query prefers centralizing its data fetching configuration, which can be both an advantage and a disadvantage. Centralizing your setup can keep your fetch hooks organized, but it may become cumbersome when working with extensive APIs.
Mutating Data with RTK Query
Sometimes, you need to create or update your data. RTK Query provides the useMutation hook, which returns a tuple containing a trigger function and an object with results from the trigger. You can also use RTK Query to implement optimistic update behavior and synchronize your local cache with the server after performing a mutation.
Caching and Query Statuses
Caching is automatic in RTK Query, and it handles refetching only for the elements that have changed. You can also use the refetch function provided by your hook to override this behavior. RTK Query exposes request states, which can be directly used in your app.
Conditional Fetching and Error Handling
RTK Query provides a way to stop a query from automatically running with a Boolean skip parameter. You can also use a custom baseQuery to mold your returned data and handle errors. RTK Query exposes a retry utility to help you gracefully handle errors and manage them at a macro level.
Polling and Prefetching
RTK Query enables you to create a real-time server experience with the exposed pollingInterval on your useQuery hooks. You can also manually refresh your data or prefetch it before it’s actually needed.
CodeGen and Customizability
RTK Query provides a CodeGen that works with OpenAPI schemas to simplify writing full API endpoints in your service file. You can also customize RTK Query to handle default behaviors, interceptors, and authentication without repeating code.
Comparison with React-Query
RTK Query resembles react-query in its use of hooks, but it focuses on harnessing Redux’s power to provide a more efficient and declarative method to fetch data. RTK Query is agnostic by nature, with a tight dependency on Redux Toolkit, and its caching strategies differ from react-query.
Get Ready for RTK Query
When RTK Query reaches production, it will be a valuable addition to teams using Redux for state management. Its early signs show great promise, and it already delivers a simple and efficient solution for data caching and fetching.