How to Load Data Dynamically With Custom Pagination in React Native
Pagination refers to the system of dividing large amounts of data into smaller, more manageable chunks or pages to improve performance and usability. Custom pagination, if implemented properly, can provide a better user experience. Learn how to create a custom pagination solution in React Native that allows you to load data dynamically.
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With custom pagination, developers can create a pagination mechanism that suits the specific requirements of their application. Custom pagination can involve designing a unique user interface for navigating between pages, implementing algorithms forfetching data from a database or API, or incorporating features like infinite scrolling or lazy loading.
Advantages of Custom Pagination
Creating a custom pagination system for your React Native mobile apps can offer some advantages:
Implementing Dynamic Loading With Custom Pagination
When your React Native application only loads the necessary data it needs to load at that time, then it is referred to as dynamic loading. To implement dynamic loading with custom pagination, you can follow these general steps:
Setting Up the Data Source
The first step in implementing custom pagination in React Native is to set up your data source. This typically involves fetching data from an API or database and storing it in a state variable. Considera simple REST APIthat returns a list of books.
Here’s an example of what the API response might look like:

To fetch this data in our React Native app, we can use thefetchfunction, which returns aPromisethat resolves with the response from the REST API.
Creating a Custom Pagination Function
Let’s proceed to create a function that will fetch the data from the API and update the state with the newly received data. This function will decide what to render on the screen of the React Native app.
We’lldefine this function as an async functionthat takes a page parameter and returns a Promise that resolves with the fetched data.

In the code block above, thefetchBooksfunction takes apageparameter and returns a Promise that resolves with the data from that page. Here, thePAGE_SIZEconstant is used to limit the number of books fetched per page.
Implementing Dynamic Loading With the Help of the Custom Pagination Function
With the custom pagination function defined, you’re able to now use it to implement dynamic loading in the app. To do this, use theFlatListcomponent, which is a high-performance component for rendering large lists of data in React Native.
First, set up theFlatListcomponent with some initial state:

This code sets up the FlatList component with two pieces of state, namelybooksandcurrentPage. We use theuseEffect()hook to fetch the initial page of data when our app first runs.
Next, we define arenderItemfunction that takes an item from thebooksarray and returns aViewcontaining the book title and author.

Finally, we have passed thebooksarray to thedataprop of theFlatList, along with ourrenderItemfunction andkeyExtractor.
We now have to make sure that our Flatlist can detect when a user scrolls to the end of the list. At that point, it should proceed to fetch and load the new data and render it.
To do this, we’ll use theonEndReachedprop provided to theFlatList, which is a callback called when the user scrolls to the end of the list. We should also update ourcurrentPagestate to keep track of which page we’re currently on.
Here is the updated code implementing all this:
Here we have added two new states calledisLoadingandonEndReachedThreshold.isLoadingkeeps track of whether we’re currently fetching data, andonEndReachedThresholdfires theonEndReachedcallback when the user has scrolled to within 10% of the end of the list.
We created a new function calledfetchMorethat runs whenonEndReachedis fired. It checks if we’re already loading data, and if not, it fetches the next page of data and updates our list.
Finally, we added the new necessary props to ourFlatListcomponent. TheFlatListcomponent will now dynamically load data as the user scrolls to the end of the list.
Improve Your App’s Performance Using Custom Pagination
You learned how to load data dynamically in React Native with your own custom pagination system. This method gives you more flexibility and control when dealing with large amounts of data in your app. Remember to tailor your pagination to match your app’s style and needs. You can customize it even further to achieve the desired look and functionality. Overall, it would definitely help you to optimize your app’s performance.
Find out how to get the most out of your React Native app and give your users the very best experience.
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