Real-world State Management
This tutorial ties together everything covered in this section by walking through how state management concepts apply in a realistic e-commerce style React Native application.
Identifying State Categories
A typical e-commerce app has several distinct categories of state, each best handled by a different strategy:
- Authentication state – Global, persisted with Redux Persist or secure storage
- Product catalog – Server state, managed with RTK Query or React Query
- Shopping cart – Global, persisted state using Redux Toolkit
- Theme preference – Global, lightweight state, ideal for Context API or Zustand
- Form input values – Local component state using useState
Structuring the Redux Store
Combining RTK Query with Redux Toolkit
RTK Query integrates seamlessly into the same Redux store, handling product catalog fetching, caching, and refetching automatically alongside manually managed slices like cart and auth.
Persisting Only What Matters
Handling the Complete Data Flow
A user adds a product to their cart, dispatching an action that updates the cart slice, which is automatically persisted. Meanwhile, the product catalog itself remains managed separately through RTK Query, refetching whenever the underlying data becomes stale.
Conclusion
Real-world React Native applications rarely rely on a single state management approach. Instead, they thoughtfully combine local state, global state, server state, and persistence strategies based on the specific needs of each piece of data.
