How to use Axios to make API requests?

Setting Up

To use axios for requesting APIs, you need to install it first in your project. Here is the command you would need to run for this in your terminal:

sh
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npm install axios

Once it’s done, import axios at the top of the file where you are interested in making API requests.

For this piece, I will use Famous Quotes API from RapidAPI Hub. It provides you with thousands of APIs that you can use in your application. Many APIs on RapidAPI Hub have free versions available, but you can also buy a premium version if the free version does not satisfy your need.

Making A Request

Take a look at the snippet below. If you want to make a GET request, you will use the get method of axios. If you’re going to make a POST, PUT, or DELETE request, you will use post, put, or delete method of axios. These are called HTTP methods.

The first parameter of these HTTP methods is the API you want to request, and the second parameter is an object where you can send params, headers, and your API request. The header is generally the area where you will add your API key.

js
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import axios from 'axios';
const requestAPI = async () => {
	try {
		const res = await axios.get(`API`, {
			headers: {},
			params: {}
		});
	} catch (err) {
		console.log(err);
	}
};

Here is an example of requesting data from an API using axios.

js
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import axios from 'axios';
const fetchQuotes = async () => {
	try {
		const res = await axios.get(
			`https://famous-quotes4.p.rapidapi.com/random`,
			{
				headers: {
					'x-rapidapi-host': 'famous-quotes4.p.rapidapi.com',
					'x-rapidapi-key': API_KEY
				},
				params: {category: 'all', count: '10'}
			}
		);
	} catch (err) {
		console.log(err);
	}
};

This is pretty much it. Now go ahead and try to make some API calls using axios.