React Bridge

A small library that helps you make hybrid apps by integrating React.js into full stack PHP frameworks.

Inspired by react-rails gem

Getting started

All you need to do to integrate React into your favorite full stack MVC project is:

1. npm install react or yarn add react

2. composer require sasab/react-bridge

3. Call the react_component or rc function somewhere in your views

4. Finally, add the generated file(s) to your bundle or directly into your html via the script tag

If you are a Laravel user you can start using it out of the box, it uses Laravel's folder structure by default.

The "bundling" react.js file will be generated in /resources/assets/js and it will look for your React component files in the /resources/assets/js/components folder by default.

This function will detect the environment of your app from the .env file, if it is in production it will just return the <div id='my-component' data-props='{"foo":"bar"}'> file required by React. If it is in development it will write/append to the react.js file.

You can override the defaults by either using the .env file or providing the overrides as the third param to the react_component function.

    // Data provided from the server that will be passed as props to your component
    $props = ['foo' => 'bar'];

    // Default options
    <?= react_component('my-component', $props, [
        'ref' => false,
        'component' => null,
        'path' => '/resources/assets/js',
        'folder' => 'components',
        'filename' => 'react'    
    ]) ?>
    
    // or in Laravel's blade

    {!! react_component('my-laravel-component', ['foo' => 'bar']) !!}

.env:

REACT_BRIDGE_ENV=
REACT_BRIDGE_PATH=
REACT_BRIDGE_FOLDER=
REACT_BRIDGE_FILENAME=

Options

1. ref - if you set it to true your component will have have a reference on the global window object window._components.MyComponent

2. component - by default the first parameter to the react_component function represents the html id attribute which will be turned into the StudlyCase name of your component, and the function will look into the root of the ../components/ folder for your actual React.jsx component file.

   If you want to provide a custom name or a custom path or both you can provide it as this parameter e.g.:

   react_component('my-component', $data, ['component' => 'Articles/Comments/SingleComment']);

   Dot-notation is also supported so you can write it like this as well:

   react_component('my-component', $data, ['component' => 'Articles.Comments.SingleComment']);

   From v1.1 first parameter can be an array, so you can provide the id and the custom component as a list: :

       react_component(['my-component', 'Articles.Comments.SingleComment'], $data);

3. path - base path where your bundling file(s) will be generated

4. folder - folder name inside the path where your React.jsx components will be located

5. filename - name of your bundling file(s)

Conventions

The first parameter to the react_component expects a slug that will be the id of the element which, as previously noted, will be turned into the StudlyCase name of the component, e.g.:

react_component('my-component');

If the name of the component is actually a folder the function will look for a container component inside of the folder /MyComponent/MyComponentContainer. You can read more about this React pattern here