How to build powerful tables in React using the React Table package

React Table is a really powerful datagrid package for React that lets you create dynamic tables. It has many use cases and the package has an extensive list of features. In this tutorial I will show you how to build a Movie Database application.

The Movie Database application will have the functionality below:

Displays data inside of a table
Lets you filter by movie name and genre
Has pagination that limits the data results
Allows you to navigate forwards and backwards through the table data
Can be sorted by ascending and descending order when you click on the Movie and Genre heading labels

The final design can be seen below in this image.

Prerequisites

Node, npm and yarn installed
A Code editor or IDE
A BASH Terminal app

This tutorial will be using npm but you can use yarn if you want just use the appropriate commands.

Building the Movie Database App

Use your BASH Terminal to create a folder for the project and setup a React boilerplate

mkdir movie-database
cd movie-database
mkdir frontend
cd frontend
npx create-react-app .

When this step has finished install the react-table package as well as the match-sorter package which is useful for sorting array data.

npm install react-table match-sorter --save

Open the project folder in your code editor and start the server. If you have Visual Studio Code installed with the command line setup you can open it in BASH.

code .
npm start

You should see your React application running on http://localhost:3000/

Clean the application by removing boilerplate files and folders. Delete all of the files inside of the src folder. Now create the files below and make sure that they are inside of the src folder.

index.js
App.js
App.css

Copy the code snippets below and paste them into their corresponding files.

index.js

import React from 'react';

import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';

import App from './App';

ReactDOM.render(<App />, document.getElementById('root'));

App.js

import React from 'react';

import { useTable, useFilters, useGlobalFilter, useSortBy, usePagination } from 'react-table';

import { matchSorter } from 'match-sorter';

import './App.css';



// Define a default UI for filtering

function DefaultColumnFilter({ column: { filterValue, preFilteredRows, setFilter } }) {

const count = preFilteredRows.length;



return (

<input

value={filterValue || ''}

onChange={(e) => {

setFilter(e.target.value || undefined); // Set undefined to remove the filter entirely

}}

placeholder={`Search ${count} records...`}

/>

);

}



// Fuzzy text search essentially means approximate string matching and is a way of looking up strings that match a pattern even if the characters are not in the correct order.

function fuzzyTextFilterFn(rows, id, filterValue) {

return matchSorter(rows, filterValue, { keys: [(row) => row.values[id]] });

}



// Let the table remove the filter if the string is empty

fuzzyTextFilterFn.autoRemove = (val) => !val;



// Our table component

function Table({ columns, data }) {

const filterTypes = React.useMemo(

() => ({

fuzzyText: fuzzyTextFilterFn,

text: (rows, id, filterValue) => {

return rows.filter((row) => {

const rowValue = row.values[id];

return rowValue !== undefined

? String(rowValue).toLowerCase().startsWith(String(filterValue).toLowerCase())

: true;

});

},

}),

[]

);



const defaultColumn = React.useMemo(

() => ({

// Let's set up our default Filter UI

Filter: DefaultColumnFilter,

}),

[]

);



const {

getTableProps,

getTableBodyProps,

headerGroups,

prepareRow,

page,

visibleColumns,

canPreviousPage,

canNextPage,

pageOptions,

pageCount,

gotoPage,

nextPage,

previousPage,

setPageSize,

state: { pageIndex, pageSize },

} = useTable(

{

columns,

data,

defaultColumn, // Be sure to pass the defaultColumn option

filterTypes,

initialState: { pageIndex: 0 },

},

useFilters,

useGlobalFilter,

useSortBy,

usePagination

);



return (

<>

<div className="container">

<div>

<h1>Movie Database</h1>

<table {...getTableProps()} cellPadding={0} cellSpacing={0}>

<thead>

{headerGroups.map((headerGroup) => (

<tr {...headerGroup.getHeaderGroupProps()}>

{headerGroup.headers.map((column) => (

// Add the sorting props to control sorting. For this example

// we can add them into the header props



<th>

<div {...column.getHeaderProps(column.getSortByToggleProps())}>

{column.render('Header')}

{/* Add a sort direction indicator */}

<span>{column.isSorted ? (column.isSortedDesc ? ' 🔽' : ' 🔼') : ''}</span>

</div>

<div>

{/* Render the columns filter UI */}

<div>{column.canFilter ? column.render('Filter') : null}</div>

</div>

</th>

))}

</tr>

))}

<tr>

<th

colSpan={visibleColumns.length}

style={{

textAlign: 'left',

}}

></th>

</tr>

</thead>

<tbody {...getTableBodyProps()}>

{page.map((row, i) => {

prepareRow(row);

return (

<tr {...row.getRowProps()}>

{row.cells.map((cell) => {

return <td {...cell.getCellProps()}>{cell.render('Cell')}</td>;

})}

</tr>

);

})}

</tbody>

</table>

<br />



<div className="pagination">

<div>

<button onClick={() => gotoPage(0)} disabled={!canPreviousPage}>

{'<<'}

</button>{' '}

<button onClick={() => previousPage()} disabled={!canPreviousPage}>

{'<'}

</button>{' '}

<button onClick={() => nextPage()} disabled={!canNextPage}>

{'>'}

</button>{' '}

<button onClick={() => gotoPage(pageCount - 1)} disabled={!canNextPage}>

{'>>'}

</button>{' '}

<span>

Page{' '}

<strong>

{pageIndex + 1} of {pageOptions.length}

</strong>{' '}

</span>

<span>

| Go to page:{' '}

<input

type="number"

defaultValue={pageIndex + 1}

onChange={(e) => {

const page = e.target.value ? Number(e.target.value) - 1 : 0;

gotoPage(page);

}}

style={{ width: '100px' }}

/>

</span>{' '}

<select

value={pageSize}

onChange={(e) => {

setPageSize(Number(e.target.value));

}}

>

{[10, 20, 30, 40, 50].map((pageSize) => (

<option key={pageSize} value={pageSize}>

Show {pageSize}

</option>

))}

</select>

<div>

Showing the first {page.length} results of {page.length} rows

</div>

</div>

</div>

</div>

</div>

</>

);

}



function App() {

const columns = React.useMemo(

() => [

{

Header: ' ',

columns: [

{

Header: 'Movie',

accessor: 'movie',

filter: 'fuzzyText',

},

{

Header: 'Genre',

accessor: 'genre',

filter: 'fuzzyText',

},

],

},

],

[]

);



const data = [

{ movie: 'Spider-Man: No Way Home', genre: 'Action' },

{ movie: "The King's Man", genre: 'Action' },

{ movie: 'The Matrix Resurrections', genre: 'Action' },

{ movie: 'West Side Story', genre: 'Romance' },

{ movie: 'Ghostbusters: Afterlife', genre: 'Fantasy' },

{ movie: 'House of Gucci', genre: 'Drama' },

{ movie: 'The Boss Baby', genre: 'Comedy' },

{ movie: 'F9', genre: 'Action' },

{ movie: "Don't Look Up", genre: 'Comedy' },

{ movie: 'Dune', genre: 'Sci-fi' },

{ movie: 'Clifford the Big Red Dog', genre: 'Comedy' },

{ movie: 'Encanto', genre: 'Comedy' },

{ movie: 'Shazam!', genre: 'Action' },

{ movie: 'The Old Guard', genre: 'Action' },

{ movie: 'My Hero Academia: Two Heroes', genre: 'Action' },

{ movie: 'The Hobbit', genre: 'Fantasy' },

{ movie: 'Forrest Gump', genre: 'Drama' },

{ movie: 'The Theory of Everything', genre: 'Drama' },

{ movie: 'Star Trek', genre: 'Sci-fi' },

{ movie: 'Pulp Fiction', genre: 'Drama' },

{ movie: 'Mad Max: Fury Road', genre: 'Fantasy' },

{ movie: 'Hancock', genre: 'Action' },

{ movie: 'Red Notice', genre: 'Action' },

{ movie: 'The Unforgivable', genre: 'Drama' },

{ movie: 'Dark Waters', genre: 'Drama' },

{ movie: 'After', genre: 'Romance' },

{ movie: 'Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood', genre: 'Drama' },

{ movie: 'Escape Room', genre: 'Sci-fi' },

{ movie: 'The Irishman', genre: 'Drama' },

{ movie: 'Enola Holmes', genre: 'Adventure' },

];



return <Table columns={columns} data={data} />;

}



export default App;

App.css

@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Quicksand:wght@400;500;700&display=swap');



*,

*::before,

*::after {

margin: 0;

padding: 0;

box-sizing: border-box;

}



html {

font-size: 16px;

}



body {

font-size: 1rem;

background: #7f80db;

font-family: 'Quicksand', sans-serif;

color: #2d3039;

}



.container {

display: flex;

flex-flow: row nowrap;

justify-content: center;

align-items: center;

width: 100vw;

margin-top: 5rem;

}



.container h1 {

text-align: center;

text-transform: uppercase;

font-size: 4rem;

}



.pagination {

background: #edf3fa;

padding: 1rem;

display: flex;

flex-flow: row nowrap;

justify-content: center;

}



table {

padding: 1rem;

width: 100%;

border-radius: 1rem;

border: 0.5rem solid #2d3039;

}



table th div {

font-size: 1.6rem;

background: #2d3039;

color: #ffffff;

}



table thead tr td {

width: 30rem;

}



table td {

background: #edf3fa;

width: 30rem;

max-width: 30rem;

padding: 1rem;

border-bottom: 0.1rem solid #2d3039;

border-top: 0.1rem solid #2d3039;

}



input {

width: 100%;

height: 4rem;

padding: 1rem;

border: 0.1rem solid #2d3039;

margin-bottom: 1rem;

}



button {

background: #ffffff;

height: 2rem;

width: 2rem;

border: none;

cursor: pointer;

}



select {

height: 2rem;

width: 10rem;

}

You might need to reload your browser or restart the server but assuming you did everything correct you should see the Movie Database working.

Conclusion

This was just a brief introduction you should definitely check out their website https://react-table.tanstack.com/ because there are a lot of features to play around with.