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Pavneet Singh

Display a List Using the FlatList Component in React Native

Pavneet Singh

  • Sep 18, 2020
  • 11 Min read
  • 110,903 Views
  • Sep 18, 2020
  • 11 Min read
  • 110,903 Views
Web Development
Client-side Frameworks
React
Front End Web Development
Introduction

Introduction

Lists are one of the common scrollable components to display similar types of data objects. A list is like an enhanced version of a ScrollView component to display data. React Native provides a FlatList component to create a list. FlatList only renders the list items that can be displayed on the screen. Additionally, FlatList offers many inbuilt features like vertical/horizontal scrolling, header/footer views, separator, pull to refresh, lazy loading, etc. This guide will explain the important details to create and optimize a list of cats images using the TheCatsAPI in React Native.

Basics of FlatList

FlatList is a specialized implementation of the VirtualizedList component to display a limited number of items that can fit inside the current window. The rest of the items will be rendered with the list scrolling action. FlatList can simply be implemented using the data and renderItem props to create a list. There are many other optional props available to add more features, so the props can be categorized into primary and optional.

Primary Props

  • data takes an array of items, of type any, to populate items in the list.
  • renderItem requires a function that takes an item object as an input from the data source to construct and return a list-item component.

Optional Props

Optional props are used to decorate FlatList using an item-divider, header/footer, pull-to-refresh, handle refreshing or optimization logic:

  • ItemSeparatorComponent is used to add a separator to visually separate items.
  • keyExtractor is used to provide a unique value (ID, email, etc.) to avoid the recreation of the list by tracking the reordering of the items.
  • extraData takes a boolean value to re-render the current list. FlatList is a PureComponent that does not re-render against any change in the state or props objects, so extraData prop is used to re-render the current list if the data array is being mutated.
  • initialNumToRender is used to render a minimum number of item-components in a FlatList for efficiency.
  • ListEmptyComponent is used to display an empty view while the data is being downloaded.
  • ListHeaderComponent is used to add a header component like search, menu-items, etc.
  • ListFooterComponent is used to add a footer component like total items, data summary etc.
  • getItemLayout returns the predefined size of the list-item component to skip the size calculation process at runtime to speed up the rendering process.
  • horizontal prop takes a boolean value to create a horizontal list by returning like horizontal={true}.
  • numColumns is used to create a column-based list.
  • onRefresh and refreshing are used to implement pull-to-refresh controls, and maintain their visibility using a boolean flag.
  • onEndReached and onEndReachedThreshold are used to implement lazy loading callback with a given threshold value. There are other props that can be used to implement style, scrolling, etc.

Downloading List Data

In order to fetch a mock response, use the search request API of TheCatsAPI, which doesn't require any registration or API key. The network request can simply be implemented using a fetch request:

1fetchCats() {
2  fetch('https://api.thecatapi.com/v1/images/search?limit=10&page=1') // 1
3      .then(res => res.json()) // 2
4      .then(resJson => {
5          this.setState({ data: resJson }); // 3
6      }).catch(e => console.log(e));
7}
JSX

The above request will:

  1. Download the data with a limit of ten images from page one.
  2. Convert the response into a JSON object.
  3. Store the converted response JSON object in the state object as a value of the data key by using the setState function.

Implement a List Item Builder Function

The fetch request will provide the data to one of the primary props of the FlatList. Now implement a function to return a list-item component for the renderItem prop:

1renderItemComponent = (itemData) => // 1
2  <TouchableOpacity>   // 2
3      <Image style={styles.image} source={{ uri: itemData.item.url }} /> // 3
4  </TouchableOpacity>
JSX

The key field in the response is the url that will be used to download and display the image. The following steps explain the working of the renderItemComponent function:

  1. Takes an object as a parameter that will be used by the UI components.
  2. A TouchableOpacity component is used to implement a click listener because the Image component does not have an onPress prop.
  3. An Image component takes a URI as a source data to display the image. It will download the image automatically.

Implement a FlatList

Import the FlatList component from the react-native module to create a list using data and renderItemComponent:

1render() {
2  return (
3    <SafeAreaView>
4      <FlatList
5        data={this.state.data}
6        renderItem={item => this.renderItemComponent(item)}
7      />
8    </SafeAreaView>)
9}
j

The this.state.data will be updated by the fetch request, and it will trigger a re-rendering process in the FlatList component. The above implementation works fine, but the next steps will add more features to improve the FlatList implementation.

Implement KeyExtractor

React always uses a unique key to track the updates in a component. By default, the FlatList looks either for a custom keyExtractor implementation or a field named key in a data item, otherwise it uses the array index as the value of key. The id is a unique value in the response that can be used to implement the keyExtractor:

1render() {
2  return (
3    <SafeAreaView>
4      <FlatList
5        data={this.state.data}
6        renderItem={item => this.renderItemComponent(item)}
7        keyExtractor={item => item.id.toString()}
8      />
9    </SafeAreaView>)
10}
jsx

Implement a Separator

A separator is a component that is placed between the list-items. It can be implemented by using a View component:

1ItemSeprator = () => <View style={{
2  height: 2,
3  width: "100%",
4  backgroundColor: "rgba(0,0,0,0.5)",
5}} />
6
7<FlatList
8    //...
9    ItemSeparatorComponent={this.ItemSeprator}
10/>
JSX

Just like ItemSeparatorComponent, different components can be implemented for ListFooterComponent and ListHeaderComponent props.

Implement Pull-to-refresh

The pull-to-refresh implementation requires a boolean flag for the refreshing prop to hide/display the loading indication. The handleRefresh is a function for the onRefresh prop to update the data and loading indicator:

1handleRefresh = () => {
2    this.setState({ refreshing: false }, ()=>{this.fetchCats()});
3}
4<FlatList
5    //...
6    refreshing={this.state.refreshing}
7    onRefresh={this.handleRefresh}
8/>)
JSX

The value of refreshing is set to true before the fetch call to display the loading indicator. The value of the refreshing field will be set to false in case of a successful response or error.

Handle Mutable Data Changes

Since FlatList is a PureComponent, it assumes that the data is an immutable object and that any change in data is done by setting a new data source object in the state object. Alternatively, use the extraData={this.state.isChanged} prop to re-render a FlatList component by updating the value of isChanged property.

Here's the complete code of the App.js component:

1/**
2 * @author Pavneet Singh
3 */
4
5import React from "react";
6import {
7    StyleSheet,
8    SafeAreaView,
9    FlatList,
10    View,
11    Image,
12    TouchableOpacity
13} from "react-native";
14
15export default class App extends React.Component {
16    constructor(props) {
17        super(props);
18        this.state = {
19            data: [],
20            refreshing: true,
21        }
22    }
23
24    componentDidMount() {
25        this.fetchCats();
26    }
27
28    fetchCats() {
29        this.setState({ refreshing: true });
30        fetch('https://api.thecatapi.com/v1/images/search?limit=10&page=1')
31            .then(res => res.json())
32            .then(resJson => {
33                this.setState({ data: resJson });
34                this.setState({ refreshing: false });
35            }).catch(e => console.log(e));
36    }
37
38    renderItemComponent = (data) =>
39        <TouchableOpacity style={styles.container}>
40            <Image style={styles.image} source={{ uri: data.item.url }} />
41        </TouchableOpacity>
42
43    ItemSeparator = () => <View style={{
44        height: 2,
45        backgroundColor: "rgba(0,0,0,0.5)",
46        marginLeft: 10,
47        marginRight: 10,
48    }}
49    />
50
51    handleRefresh = () => {
52        this.setState({ refreshing: false }, () => { this.fetchCats() }); // call fetchCats after setting the state
53    }
54
55    render() {
56      return (
57        <SafeAreaView>
58          <FlatList
59            data={this.state.data}
60            renderItem={item => this.renderItemComponent(item)}
61            keyExtractor={item => item.id.toString()}
62            ItemSeparatorComponent={this.ItemSeparator}
63            refreshing={this.state.refreshing}
64            onRefresh={this.handleRefresh}
65          />
66        </SafeAreaView>)
67    }
68}
69
70const styles = StyleSheet.create({
71  container: {
72    height: 300,
73    margin: 10,
74    backgroundColor: '#FFF',
75    borderRadius: 6,
76  },
77  image: {
78    height: '100%',
79    borderRadius: 4,
80  },
81});
JSX

Tips

  • Use the initialNumToRender prop to render the defined numbers of items initially, and maxToRenderPerBatch to render items for every scroll to avoid blank space on the screen during scrolling. The default value for both of the props is 10.
  • Use the getItemLayout prop if the height or width of list-item is fixed. For example, if the height for item is 100 then use:
1  getItemLayout={(data, index) => (
2    {length: 100, offset: 100 * index, index}
3  )}
JSX

The length used to define item height (vertically) and offset is used to define the starting point for the current item index. For example, the starting point of the third item will be 100 * 2 = 200 (array index starts from 0).

Conclusion

FlatList offers great flexibility to create and configure a list in a React Native app. FlatList can be optimized for static and dynamic data using various layout calculations and rendering props. The React Native team is working to further improve its performance for large datasets. The optimized project is available on my RNList repository. Happy coding!

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