HTTP requests in react native

How do I use HTTP requests in react native?

In React Native, you can request data from an API over the network using the fetch() method. The syntax is simple: fetch('https://examples.com/data.json'); We pass the URL to the fetch method to make a request.

Using Fetch

React Native provides the Fetch API for your networking needs. Fetch will seem familiar if you have used XMLHttpRequest or other networking APIs. You may refer to MDN's guide on Using Fetch for additional information.

Making requests

To fetch content from an arbitrary URL, you can pass the URL to fetch

Handling the response

Networking is an inherently asynchronous operation. Fetch method will return a Promise that makes it straightforward to write code that works in an asynchronous manner

Using Other Networking Libraries

The XMLHttpRequest API is built in to React Native. You can use third-party libraries such as frisbee or Axios that depend on it or use the XMLHttpRequest API directly.

WebSocket Support

React Native also supports WebSockets, which provides full-duplex communication channels over a single TCP connection.

Issues with fetch and cookie-based authentication

The following options are currently not working with fetch:

  • redirect: manual
  • credentials: omit
  • Having the same name headers on Android will result in only the latest one being present.
  • Cookie-based authentication is currently unstable.
  • As a minimum, on iOS, when redirected through a 302, if a Set-Cookie header is present, the cookie is not set properly. Since the redirect cannot be handled manually, this might cause a scenario where infinite requests occur if the redirect is the result of an expired session.