Laravel React How using React in a Laravel application - Tutorial

Reactive applications are a big part of the web world, that's why it is necessary to use the latest technologies to deploy. Laravel had integrated a Scaffolding to deploy React JS since version 5.5. In this tutorial, we’ll learn how to integrate React and Laravel.

Actually, it is really simple so let's start it!

Installing Laravel

To create a new project in Laravel, the first thing we've to do is download the Laravel installer using Composer:

$ composer global require laravel/installer

If you don't have composer installed please go to: https://dev.to/lvtdeveloper/installing-virtual-environment-with-laravel-homestead-tutorial-4p32
In this article I explain how to do it so check it out.

The first command to create our project is "laravel new" followed by the name we want to assign to the project. For instance, "laravel new dutylist" will create a directory named dutylist that contains a new Laravel installation with all of dependencies already installed.

$ laravel new dutylist

Once that’s is done enter to the new directory with the command:

$cd dutylist

Using React in a Laravel

By default, Laravel applications contain an ExampleComponent.vue Vue component located in the resources/js/components directory. The ExampleComponent.vue file is an example of a single file Vue component which defines its JavaScript and HTML template in the same file. Single file components provide a very convenient approach to building JavaScript driven applications. The example component is registered in your app.js file:

We need to change the default Vue.js scaffolding to React.js with the following command:

Now you can see that Laravel create a react component in the file Example.js located in the resources/js/components directory:

Run the command "npm install" to install all the javascript packages necessary for our project.

When we install a dependency with npm install, a node_modules directory is automatically generated where the installed packages are saved. Also it is generate a package-lock.json file who is responsible for keeping track of the changes made within node_modules or when changes are made to the file package.json

And now we start the app with the command:

Open the browser in the path "http://localhost:8000" and you can see the default view by Laravel

Let's change this view for a view using react.

Create an index.js file inside the resources/js/components directory

Copy all the content from the Example.js file to the index.js and make some changes:

Inside the app.js we add the new component

In order to render any element into the Browser DOM, we need to have a container or root DOM element. In this case will be

and everything inside it will be managed by React DOM. This change will be inside the welcome.blade.php located in the resources/views

To show a view through React JS, we need to compile JavaScript files using Laravel Mix with the "npm run dev" command:

And now we have a Laravel app using react.js

Thanks for reading!
Have a nice day, coders💜

Comments

[Farooq khan]

Is that npm run dev required for every time

[Lesly Villalobos]

You can use "npm run watch" instead of "npm run dev" because that run scripts from package.json when files change.

[Byron Pérez]

is csrf configuration needed? because I have error with that, thanks

[Lesly Villalobos]

Please, add this to your welcome.blabe file:

[yutakayoshida1]

Hello
how are you?
i am yoshida from japan.
can you explain in detail for me?
thanks.

[yutakayoshida1]

now i have many problem in your article.
if you can teach me, please help me.

[Lesly Villalobos]

Please, add this to your welcome.blabe file:
thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i...

[Farooq khan]

I'm facing an error while sending the csrf_token() to react js . I have a seperate react js code which included inside blade file . How can I send the csrf_token to controller via axios ?

[LFTroya]

How can you pass props to the component?

[Vishnu :)]

Hey, Thanks. :)

[Lesly Villalobos]

:3 thanks to you

[Babar Khan]

Can we use React well as Vue with Laravel?

[Khyn Antoque]

Amazing! Thanks :)

[Lesly Villalobos]

;)

[Rohit Suthar]

Thanks for sharing these nice articles!!

[yoyooo]

This is so helpful. Thanks!

[Lesly Villalobos]

Thanks to you :)

[Alireza Bazargani]

first of all, thanks for article.
i got situation,
what if we want to use react in deployed project?
i mean that application is not new & clean.

cause i tested and nothing happens!

[Lesly Villalobos]

It may be a caché problem.
Try this:

php artisan cache:clear
php artisan view:clear

[joseAlex27]

Hi, do you have deployed this app? cause im trying with mine and nothing happens!
thanks!

[joseAlex27]

im using cpanel to deploy the project and it doesn't work!

[Galih indra]

This is a great article.

How to install redux or any packages?

and also how to deploy mono react+laravel if my server doesn't have node.js like cpanel?

[Rayha]

need help, Command "preset" is not defined. when i run php artisan preset react

[cliffchristianson]

You've probably fixed this but for others with the same problem, the preset command was removed in Laravel 7, you will now want to use

composer require laravel/ui

php artisan ui react

auth and some other guys are here now too

[Adelin]

But documentation still shows php artisan preset react command !

[Marcio Zebedeu]

thank you

[jorge170909]

Hi Lesly, thanks!. Do you know how can I use Typescript instead JS files?

[BlueBamboo]

i made laravel and react project.
but there is an bug.
if i click button, page is working well.
but if i refresh page, it is not working.
"don't found page"
I think it happends because route manage.
so if i refresh page, project find this route in web.php in laravel.
But there isn't this route there.
because it is react route.
I think you can understand my explain because you are react and laravel developer.
So how i can fix this issue?
Thanks.