Redux is a predictable state container for JavaScript applications. It helps manage the state of your application – the state being the source of truth that drives the app. Redux enables you to write applications that behave consistently and makes it easy to test and debug your code.
Redux works by centralizing the application’s state and enforcing that any changes to it follow certain rules. Here is a basic overview of how it works:
1. Store: Redux introduces a concept called a store, which is used to keep the state of the entire application. It’s an object that holds the application’s state. There is only one store in any Redux application.
1. Actions: Changes to the state of the store are made via actions. Actions are plain JavaScript objects that contain a ‘type’ and a ‘payload’ of information that is sent from your application to your store.
1. Reducers: Actions describe the fact that something happened, but they don’t describe how the application’s state changes in response. Instead, this is done by a reducer, a function that determines how the state should change in response to an action.
When an action is dispatched, the reducer processes the action, calculates the updated state and returns a new state. The new returned state then replaces the old state.
Redux maintains the state and notifies React components about the changes by re-rendering them, allowing for a reactive programming style where different parts of the application respond and change dynamically according to user input and the state of the application.
Although Redux is often used with React, it can be used with any other JavaScript framework or library. It is lightweight (about 2KB), so it doesn’t add much overhead to your application.
