ReactJS Tutorial

What Are ReactJS Forms? How to Create Forms in ReactJS?

What are Forms in React?

Forms allow users to interact with React web applications. Using forms, you can directly input and submit data in components whether it's a login screen or a checkout page. In React, the applications are mostly single-page applications (SPAs) that load a single page and display the new data dynamically at a later stage. Therefore, there is no need to submit the information directly from the form to a server. Instead, you need to capture the form information on the client-side and send or display it using additional JavaScript code.

React forms can perform several important tasks such as:

  • User authentication

  • User addition

  • Data search

  • Data filtering

  • Booking

  • Ordering

There will be text fields, checkboxes, buttons, and radio buttons in a form.

How to Create a Form in ReactJS?

You can create forms in React using the following methods.

  • Uncontrolled component

In this case, the input is similar to that of the traditional HTML form inputs. The DOM will handle the form data all by itself. The original state of the HTML elements is maintained and it gets updated only when the input value changes. 

You can use a ref to create an uncontrolled component and get form values from DOM. A ref will give you access to the input field value of the form from the DOM.

Let’s see an example of an uncontrolled component where the code picks a username and company name.

Handling Multiple Inputs in Controlled Component

The key to handling multiple controlled input elements is adding a name attribute to each element. Then the handler function will decide what to do based on the value of event.target.name.

Did you find this article helpful?