Best Practices with React Hooks

Are you new to react? Wondering what are React Hooks and when you should use them?

Here are the basics of  React Hooks and some of the best practices of using them in your Race applications…

What Are React Hooks?

Hooks are a great way to make your code more readable and maintainable. There are a few different Hooks in React, but the most commonly used are useState and useEffect. The useState hook lets you add state to your components. This is useful for things like keeping track of a user’s input or changes to a form. The useEffect hook lets you run a function whenever a component renders. This is useful for things like fetching data from an API or setting up a subscription.

When to Use React Hooks?

You should use React Hooks whenever you need to add extra functionality to a component. For example, if you need to keep track of a user’s input, you would use the useState hook. If you need to fetch data from an API, you would use the useEffect hook. You can also create custom hooks for API calls.

Best Practices

Use Hooks at the Top Level

One of the best practices with React Hooks is to use them at the top level. You should avoid using hooks inside loops, conditions, or nested functions. For example, if you useState inside a for loop, each time the loop runs, React will create a new state variable. This can lead to unexpected behaviour.

Call Hooks Only From React Functions

You should only call React Hooks from React functions. If you try to call react hooks from a class component, you’ll get an error.

This is because you can only call a React Hook from a React function. React functions are components that you declare with a function keyword.

Don’t Overuse Hooks

React Hooks are a powerful tool, but you should avoid overusing them. If you find yourself using multiple Hook in every component, you might be overusing them.

React Hooks are most useful when you need to share state between multiple components. Avoid using unnecessary Hooks because they can make your code hard to read, and they might affect performance if used excessively.

Use Only One useEffect Hook

If you’re using the useEffect hook, you should only use one per component. This is because useEffect runs whenever a component renders.

If you have multiple useEffect hooks, they will all run whenever a component renders. This can lead to unexpected behavior and performance problems. In the below example, both useEffects will run whenever the App component renders.