How to build a Public Holiday App using Public Holiday API?

Stack

We need to choose a stack first to build this application. I have decided to go with the Jamstack.

I am going to use Next.js for the frontend and TailwindCSS for the styling.

If you don’t know about Next.js, it is a JavaScript framework built on top of React and provides features like server-side rendering, static site generation, etc. Tailwind is a CSS framework that provides utility classes to speed up the development process.

Choosing The API

Let’s find an API that we can use to search for public holidays. Go to RapidAPI Hub and create an account if you haven’t already and then search for “holidays” in the search section.

You will see different search results related to holiday APIs. For this piece, I am using Public Holiday API.

It is a free API, so you do not need to subscribe to it. However, you will need your RapidAPI key. Go ahead and save the x-rapidapi-key so you can use it later.

Building The UI

You can create a Next.js boilerplate with TailwindCSS integrated by running the following command in your terminal. So let’s do that.

sh
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npx create-next-app -e with-tailwindcss public-holiday-app

This command is going to take a minute to set everything up. After generating the boilerplate, you will see a folder with the name public-holiday-app has been created. Open this folder in your preferred code editor. I will use VSCode for this project.

Project Files

When you open the project in your code editor, you will see the following directories and files in the root directory:

• pages directory: Inside it, you will have files index.js, _app.js, and another directory called api. You only need to know about the index.js file that is the main entry point in your project.
• public directory: This directory contains icons. You place your static files here to load later in the application.
• node_modules: It’s another directory that contains all the node modules you are using in your application.
• package.json: This file contains the metadata of your project.
• package-lock.json: This file is responsible for tracking the exact version of every installed package.
• postcss.config.js: This file contains PostCSS configurations.
• tailwind.config.js: It contains TailwindCSS configurations.
• readme.md: It’s a markdown file for documentation.

Before we move on to writing the code, open this file, and copy all of its content, then paste it inside the tailwind.config.js file in your project. These are some TailwindCSS configurations I have done specifically for this project. I have added some colors that you do not have by default with TailwindCSS and set some screen sizes.

Now let’s start writing the code. I am going to do it in steps so you can follow along.

→ STEP #1

Open the pages/index.js file and remove all the existing code. After this, copy-paste the following code there:

js
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export default function Home() {
	return (
		<div className="flex flex-col items-center relative min-h-screen">
			<h2 className="font-raleway font-bold text-6xl text-primary pt-20 pb-6 md:text-3xl">
				Public <span className="text-active">Holiday</span> App
			</h2>
			<h3 className="text-primary text-2xl font-raleway font-bold uppercase tracking-wide mb-12 md:text-base md:px-4 md:text-center">
				Take a look at different public holidays of USA
			</h3>
		</div>
	);
}

It will create two headings for you with the text “Public Holiday App” and “Take a look at different public holidays in the USA”. You can change it to anything you prefer.

→ STEP #2

Now let’s create a dropdown and a search button. The user will be able to select the year from the dropdown list and use the search button to get the public holidays of that year.

For this, copy the following code and paste it in pages/index.js:

js
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export default function Home() {
	return (
		<div className="flex flex-col items-center relative min-h-screen">
			<h2 className="font-raleway font-bold text-6xl text-primary pt-20 pb-6 md:text-3xl">
				Public <span className="text-active">Holiday</span> App
			</h2>
			<h3 className="text-primary text-2xl font-raleway font-bold uppercase tracking-wide mb-12 md:text-base md:px-4 md:text-center">
				Take a look at different public holidays of USA
			</h3>
			<div className="flex w-full justify-center md:flex-col md:w-5/6">
				<select
					name="countries"
					autoFocus={true}
					className="outline-none w-2/5 bg-secondary px-4 py-2 rounded-sm font-raleway md:w-full"
				>
					{[
						2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028, 2029,
						2030
					].map(year => {
						return <option value={year}>{year}</option>;
					})}
				</select>
				<button className="outline-none border border-secondary font-bold font-raleway ml-4 px-12 py-2 rounded-sm bg-secondary text-primary transition duration-300 hover:bg-light hover:text-black md:ml-0 md:mt-4">
					Search
				</button>
			</div>
		</div>
	);
}

This code is going to create a dropdown and button. I have also styled them a little bit using TailwindCSS.

→ STEP #3

Let’s create some states to store the year and the holiday information we will receive from the API. For this, copy-paste the following code in pages/index.js.

js
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export default function Home() {
	const [year, setYear] = useState(2021);
	const [holidays, setHolidays] = useState(data);
	return (
		<div className="flex flex-col items-center relative min-h-screen">
			<h2 className="font-raleway font-bold text-6xl text-primary pt-20 pb-6 md:text-3xl">
				Public <span className="text-active">Holiday</span> App
			</h2>
			<h3 className="text-primary text-2xl font-raleway font-bold uppercase tracking-wide mb-12 md:text-base md:px-4 md:text-center">
				Take a look at different public holidays of USA
			</h3>
			<div className="flex w-full justify-center md:flex-col md:w-5/6">
				<select
					name="countries"
					autoFocus={true}
					className="outline-none w-2/5 bg-secondary px-4 py-2 rounded-sm font-raleway md:w-full"
					onChange={e => setYear(e.target.value)}
				>
					{[
						2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028, 2029,
						2030
					].map(year => {
						return <option value={year}>{year}</option>;
					})}
				</select>
				<button className="outline-none border border-secondary font-bold font-raleway ml-4 px-12 py-2 rounded-sm bg-secondary text-primary transition duration-300 hover:bg-light hover:text-black md:ml-0 md:mt-4">
					Search
				</button>
			</div>
		</div>
	);
}

You can see that I have added an onChange event handler to set the state value as soon as the user selects the year.

→ STEP #4

Let’s integrate the API now. For this, first, create a .env.local file and paste the following in it:

sh
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NEXT_PUBLIC_RAPIDAPI_KEY=YOUR-RAPIDAPI-KEY

You need to replace YOUR-RAPIDAPI-KEY here with the API key you got when you subscribed to the Public Holiday API. It is the value of x-rapidapi-key that you saved earlier.

Now download and add axios in your project. For this, run the following command in the terminal:

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npm install axios

Now import axios at the top of the pages/index.js.

js
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import axios from ‘axios’;

→ STEP #5

RapidAPI Hub provides you with code snippets in different languages for integrating the API. I am going to use the (JavaScript) Axios one.

Fetching data using (JavaScript) Axios

Now create a file with the name holiday.js inside the pages/api directory. It is going to create a REST API endpoint for you. The endpoint point will look like this:

sh
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http://localhost:3000/api/holiday

Now copy the following code in this file:

js
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import axios from 'axios';
export default async function handler(req, res) {
	if (req.method === 'GET') {
		const year = req.query.year || 2021;
		const options = {
			method: 'GET',
			url: `https://public-holiday.p.rapidapi.com/${year}/US`,
			headers: {
				'x-rapidapi-host': 'public-holiday.p.rapidapi.com',
				'x-rapidapi-key': process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_RAPIDAPI_KEY
			}
		};
		axios
			.request(options)
			.then(function (response) {
				res.status(200).json(response.data);
			})
			.catch(function (error) {
				console.error(error);
			});
	} else {
		res.status(400);
	}
}

This code makes an API call to the Public Holiday API on the server and returns the results to the user. It executes when the user makes an API call to the holiday endpoint I mentioned above.

I have added a condition in the code that will differentiate whether the API call is made before the website is loaded or afterward.

Once you are done, copy the following code in the pages/index.js file:

js
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import {useState} from 'react';
import axios from 'axios';
export default function Home({data}) {
	const [year, setYear] = useState(2021);
	const [holidays, setHolidays] = useState(data);
	/**
	 *
	 *
	 * Fetch US public holidays for a particular year
	 */
	const fetchHolidays = async () => {
		try {
			const res = await axios.get(`/api/holiday`, {
				params: {year}
			});
			setHolidays(res.data);
		} catch (err) {
			console.log(err);
		}
	};
	return (
		<div className="flex flex-col items-center relative min-h-screen">
			<h2 className="font-raleway font-bold text-6xl text-primary pt-20 pb-6 md:text-3xl">
				Public <span className="text-active">Holiday</span> App
			</h2>
			<h3 className="text-primary text-2xl font-raleway font-bold uppercase tracking-wide mb-12 md:text-base md:px-4 md:text-center">
				Take a look at different public holidays of USA
			</h3>
			<div className="flex w-full justify-center md:flex-col md:w-5/6">
				<select
					name="countries"
					autoFocus={true}
					className="outline-none w-2/5 bg-secondary px-4 py-2 rounded-sm font-raleway md:w-full"
					onChange={e => setYear(e.target.value)}
				>
					{[
						2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028, 2029,
						2030
					].map(year => {
						return <option value={year}>{year}</option>;
					})}
				</select>
				<button
					className="outline-none border border-secondary font-bold font-raleway ml-4 px-12 py-2 rounded-sm bg-secondary text-primary transition duration-300 hover:bg-light hover:text-black md:ml-0 md:mt-4"
					onClick={fetchHolidays}
				>
					Search
				</button>
			</div>
			<div className="flex justify-around flex-wrap text-primary font-raleway mt-12 w-4/6 h-4/5  md:flex-col md:w-4/6 md:h-full md:mb-12">
				{holidays.map(holiday => (
					<div
						className="flex items-center flex-col bg-light w-56 h-40 rounded-md mb-12"
						key={holidays.indexOf(holiday)}
					>
						<div className="bg-primary text-background w-full h-24 flex justify-center items-center rounded-md">
							<p>{holiday.localName}</p>
						</div>
						<div className="flex justify-center items-center h-16">
							<p>{holiday.date}</p>
						</div>
					</div>
				))}
			</div>
			<div className="flex flex-col mt-10 justify-center">
				<p className="block mb-10 text-center text-secondary text-xs">
					Made by RapidAPI DevRel Team -{' '}
					<a
						className="hover:text-active"
						href="https://github.com/RapidAPI/DevRel-Examples-External"
					>
						See more examples like this
					</a>
				</p>
			</div>
		</div>
	);
}
export async function getServerSideProps() {
	const res = await axios.get('http://localhost:3000/api/holiday');
	const {data} = res;
	if (!data) {
		return {
			notFound: true
		};
	}
	return {
		props: {
			data
		}
	};
}

I am using the Next.js getServerSideProps function to fetch the data from the server. It will make my application server-side, and the user will never see a loading state. You can also use getStaticProps instead of getServerSideProps and the application will then fetch the data at build time.

You can see that I have created a function, fetchHolidays, to request the API. I have also created a piece of UI that is rendering on the screen based on the holidays state variable’ value.

Wrap Up

That’s it. We have successfully built an Public Holiday App using Public Holiday API. You can find the source code of this web app here.

In the end, it will look something like this:

Public Holiday Application built with Next.js and Public Holiday API