What are components?

In React Native, components are the fundamental building blocks used to create the user interface (UI) of a mobile application. They are reusable, independent pieces of code that define the appearance and behavior of the UI. Components can be thought of as analogous to JavaScript functions, but they work in isolation and return elements that describe what should appear on the screen.

Types of Components

1. Core Components: These are the essential, ready-to-use components provided by React Native. They include:

   • View: A container component that supports layout with flexbox, styles, touch handling, and accessibility controls. It is analogous to a non-scrolling <div> HTML element.
   • Text: A component for displaying text, supporting styles and touch events, similar to a paragraph element in HTML.
   • Image: A component for displaying images from various sources, analogous to an <img> element.
   • TextInput: A component for inputting text via the keyboard, similar to an <input type="text"> element.
   • ScrollView: A container that can host multiple components and views, allowing for vertical or horizontal scrolling, similar to a scrolling <div> element[1][2][4][5].

2. Native Components: These are platform-specific components that React Native translates into the corresponding native views for iOS and Android at runtime. This ensures that React Native apps look, feel, and perform like native apps[2][4].

3. Custom Components: Developers can create their own components by combining core components and adding custom functionality. These components can be reused throughout the application, promoting modularity and maintainability[14].

Example of a Simple Component

Here is an example of a simple functional component in React Native:

import React from 'react';
import { View, Text } from 'react-native';

const HelloWorld = () => {
  return (
    <View>
      <Text>Hello, World!</Text>
    </View>
  );
};

export default HelloWorld;

In this example:

• The HelloWorld component is a functional component that returns a View containing a Text element.
• The View acts as a container, and the Text element displays the string "Hello, World!"[6][12].

Key Concepts

• JSX: A syntax extension that allows writing HTML-like elements within JavaScript. It simplifies UI rendering by letting developers write comp...