
How to Easily Fetch and Display JSON in React
Working with remote JSON APIs is the most common way to consume dynamic data in a frontend application. In React, fetching and displaying JSON data can be done with the use of hooks.
In this tutorial, we will take a look at how to consume an API response using built-in and custom hooks, and how to display the retrieved data to the end-user in a meaningful way.

The JSON Endpoint
For this tutorial, we are going to useย JSON Placeholder, a free fake REST API, to demonstrate how you can pull JSON data inside your React application. JSON Placeholder exposes a /users
endpoint that we can use to grab fake user data and populate a table.
[
{
"id": 1,
"name": "Leanne Graham",
"username": "Bret",
"email": "[email protected]",
"address": { ... },
"phone": "1-770-736-8031 x56442",
"website": "hildegard.org",
"company": { ... }
},
{ ... }
]
Fetching JSON in React Without Custom Hooks
First, let's see how you can fetch data in a component without using any custom hooks. This way, you can better understand the concept of how the cleaned-up version (using custom hooks) will work.
Before we start fetching, we need to wait for the component to mount. We can do this using a useEffect
hook. This is where we want to fetch the JSON using the Fetch API in the following way:
import { useEffect, useState } from 'react'
const endpoint = 'https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/users'
const App = () => {
const [users, setUsers] = useState([])
useEffect(() => {
(async () => {
const data = await fetch(endpoint)
.then(res => res.json())
setUsers(data)
})()
}, [])
return (...)
}
export default App
Let's break down what this code snippet does:
- Line 3: We store the JSON endpoint in a variable. In a real-world application, this is usually stored in a configuration file.
- Line 6: To store this data in React, we want to use theย
useState
ย hook. - Lines 8-15: The highlighted lines are responsible for fetching the data from the JSON endpoint. As
useEffect
cannot be anยasync
ย function, an IIFE is used inside it to useasync/await
. - Line 13: Once the data is returned, we can use theย
setUsers
ย updater function from ouruseState
hook to expose the fetched users to our component. - Line 15: Don't forget to pass an empty array as the second parameter to the
useEffect
hook to tell React it should be executed during the mounting phase.

Fetching JSON in React With Custom Hooks
The above example works perfectly; however, we can improve upon it. If you need to fetch data in React in multiple components, it's better to extract this logic into a custom hook that can be reused throughout the application.
This way, you will end up with less code duplication and cleaner components. To outsource the above code into a custom hook, create a new file next to your component called useFetch
ย and add the following:
import { useState, useEffect } from 'react'
const useFetch = url => {
const [state, setState] = useState([null, false])
useEffect(() => {
setState([null, true]);
(async () => {
const data = await fetch(url)
.then(res => res.json())
setState([data.body, false])
})()
}, [url])
return state
};
export default useFetch
This hook is responsible for doing the same thing as before, but now it is configurable through a parameter. To return the correct data, it uses the useState
hook internally. Notice that the state is set to an array with two items on line 4:
null
: The initial state for the data that will be returned from the custom hook.false
: The initial state for a loading indicator that is set totrue
as soon as we start the fetch. It is set back tofalse
as soon as the data arrives.
Pass url
to the dependency array to rerun the hook if the prop changes.
To use this hook inside the previous component, replace the useState
and useEffect
hooks with the following code:
const App = () => {
const [users, loading] = useFetch(endpoint)
if (loading) {
return <h1>Loading...</h1>
}
if (!users?.length) {
return <h1>There are no users to be displayed ๐ค</h1>
}
return (...)
}
We end up with a much cleaner and more declarative component. Thanks to the loading indicator, we can also display different states when we are waiting for the data to arrive. The users
variable will hold the list of users. Don't forget to safeguard line:8 with optional chaining, as its initial value will be null
.
Display the JSON
The only thing left for us to do is to actually display the JSON inside the component. To do this, we can make use of the map array method from JavaScript. Create the following table inside the component to display the users:
return (
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>ID</th>
<th>Name (Username)</th>
<th>Email</th>
<th>Phone</th>
<th>Website</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
{users.map(user => (
<tr key={user.id}>
<td>{user.id}</td>
<td>{user.name} ({user.username})</td>
<td>
<a href={`mailto:${user.email}`}>
{user.email}
</a>
</td>
<td>{user.phone}</td>
<td>
<a href={`https://${user.website}`} target="_blank">
{user.website}
</a>
</td>
</tr>
))}
</tbody>
</table>
)
The important part is highlighted in the above code example. users
is an array that we can loop over using the map
array method. Each row must be decorated with a key
property to let React identify and keep track of elements correctly.
Here, we can display properties one by one using td
elements. To make email addresses responsive in HTML, we can use the mailto:
prefix, followed by the email. This will launch the default mailer of the user when the link is clicked, with the recipient already filled in.

Summary
In summary, fetching and displaying JSON data in React can be broken down into three main steps:
- Prepare: Create a state using the
useState
hook and prepare the fetch in auseEffect
hook. - Fetch: Fetch the data using the fetch API and store it inside the state using the updater function.
- Display: Display the retrieved data to the user in a meaningful way.
If you are interested in learning more about React, be sure to check our guided roadmap below. Do you have any questions this tutorial did not cover? Let us know in the comment below! Thank you for reading, Happy coding.ย ๐จโ๐ป
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