loading json data from local file into React JS

Question

I have a React component and I want to load in my JSON data from a file. The console log currently doesn't work, even though I'm creating the variable data as a global

'use strict';

var React = require('react/addons');

// load in JSON data from file
var data;

var oReq = new XMLHttpRequest();
oReq.onload = reqListener;
oReq.open("get", "data.json", true);
oReq.send();

function reqListener(e) {
    data = JSON.parse(this.responseText);
}
console.log(data);

var List = React.createClass({
  getInitialState: function() {
    return {data: this.props.data};    
  },
  render: function() {
    var listItems = this.state.data.map(function(item) {
        var eachItem = item.works.work;        

        var photo = eachItem.map(function(url) {
            return (
                <td>{url.urls}</td> 
            )
        });
    });
    return <ul>{listItems}</ul>
  }
});

var redBubble = React.createClass({
    render: function() {
      return (
        <div>
          <List data={data}/>          
        </div>
      );
    }
  });

module.exports = redBubble;

Ideally, I would prefer to do it something like this, but it's not working - it tries to add ".js" onto the end of the filename.

var data = require('./data.json');

Any advice on the best way, preferably the "React" way, would be much appreciated!

Answer 1

You are opening an asynchronous connection, yet you have written your code as if it was synchronous. The reqListener callback function will not execute synchronously with your code (that is, before React.createClass), but only after your entire snippet has run, and the response has been received from your remote location.

Unless you are on a zero-latency quantum-entanglement connection, this is well after all your statements have run. For example, to log the received data, you would:

function reqListener(e) {
    data = JSON.parse(this.responseText);
    console.log(data);
}

I'm not seeing the use of data in the React component, so I can only suggest this theoretically: why not update your component in the callback?