Mastering State Management in React: Building a Shopping Cart Example

State management is the backbone of any React application. As your applicationg rows, managing state effectively becomes crucial for maintaining performance and code maintainability. In this guide, we’ll explore the best practices for managing state in large React applications, using real world examples and code snippets

Understanding State Management in React

State management in React can be handled in mutiple ways depending on the complexity of your application. The most common approaches include:

1. Local State with useState : Ideal for simple components.
2. Global State with Context API: Useful for passing data through multiple layers of components.
3. State Management Libraries: For complex applications, libraries like Redux or Zustand offer more robust solutions.

We’’ll focus on using Context API and useReducer to manage state in a scalable way.

Scenario: Managing a Shopping Card

Imagine you’re building an e-commerce application with a shopping cart feature. The cart state needs to be accessible across multiple components, including the product listing, cart overview, and checkout pages.