The useRef Hook
Explore the useRef Hook in React to efficiently reference DOM elements, maintain mutable values across renders without triggering UI updates, and enhance component performance. This lesson helps you apply useRef for practical tasks like focusing input fields, storing timers, and tracking previous state, enabling smoother and more manageable React applications.
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In React, we often encounter scenarios where we need to directly interact with the DOM, store mutable values that don’t trigger re-renders, or persist data across renders. The useRef Hook is a powerful tool for these purposes. It allows us to create a reference to a DOM element or a mutable value that doesn’t reinitialize between renders.
In React, a mutable value can hold data that is intended to be updated directly without triggering a re-render or affecting the component’s life cycle.
Understanding useRef
The useRef Hook in React serves multiple purposes in managing data and interacting with the DOM. It provides a way to create a mutable reference, which can be used for two primary purposes:
Accessing and manipulating DOM elements: We can attach a
useRefreference to a DOM element and directly manipulate it (e.g., focusing an input field or scrolling to a specific section).Storing persistent mutable values:
useRefcan hold values that need to persist across renders but should not trigger re-renders when updated (e.g., timer IDs or previous state values).
