Context is one of the important concept in React. It provides the ability to pass a information from the parent component to all its children to any nested level without passing the information through props in each level. Context will make the code more readable and simple to understand. Context can be used to store information which does not change or have minimal change. Some of the use cases of context are as follows −

• Application configuration

• Current authenticated user information

• Current user setting

• Language setting

• Theme / Design configuration by application / users

Let us learn how to create context and its usage in this chapter.

How context works?

Let us learn the basic concept of context and how it works. Context has four parts,

• Creating a new context

• Setting context provider in the root component

• Setting context consumer in the component where we need the context information

• Accessing context information and using it in render method

Let us create an application to better understand context and its usage. Let us create a global context for maintaining theme information in the application root component and use it in our child component.

First of all, create and start an application using below command,

create-react-app myapp
cd myapp
npm start

Next, create a component, HelloWorld under components folder (src/components/HelloWorld.js)

import React from "react";
import ThemeContext from "../ThemeContext";
class HelloWorld extends React.Component {
   render() {
      return <div>Hello World</div>
   }
}
export default HelloWorld

Next, create with a new context (src/ThemeContext.js) for maintaining theme information.

import React from ''react''
const ThemeContext = React.createContext({
   color: ''black'',
   backgroundColor: ''white''
})
export default ThemeContext

Here,

• A new context is created using React.createContext.

• Context is modeled as an object having style information.

• Set initial value for color and background of the text.

Next, update the root component, App.js by including HelloWorld component and the theme provider with initial value for the theme context.

import ''./App.css'';
import HelloWorld from ''./components/HelloWorld'';
import ThemeContext from ''./ThemeContext''

function App() {
   return (
      <ThemeContext.Provider value={{
         color: ''white'',
         backgroundColor: ''green''
      }}>
      <HelloWorld />
      </ThemeContext.Provider>
   );
}
export default App;

Here, the ThemeContext.Provider is used, which is a non-visual component to set the value of the theme context to be used in all its children component.

Next, include a context consumer in HelloWorld component and style the hello world message using theme information in HelloWorld component.

import React from "react";
import ThemeContext from "../ThemeContext";
class HelloWorld extends React.Component {
   render() {
      return  (
         <ThemeContext.Consumer>
         {({color, backgroundColor} ) =>
            (<div style={{
               color: color,
               backgroundColor: backgroundColor }}>
               Hello World
            </div>)
         }
         </ThemeContext.Consumer>
      )
   }
}
export default HelloWorld

Here,

• Used ThemeContext.Consumer, which is a non-visual component providing access to the current theme context details

• Used a function expression to get the current context information inside ThemeContext.Consumer

• Used object deconstruction syntax to get the theme information and set the value in color and backgroundColor variable.

• Used the theme information to style the component using style props.

Finally, open the browser and check the output of the application

Summary

Context reduces the complexity of maintaining global data in a react application. It provides a clean concept of provider and consumer and simplifies the implementation of context.