React Hooks Introduction

Introduction

Welcome to the React documentation! This lab will give you an introduction to using hooks.

Skills Graph

Using Hooks

The React project have already been provided in the VM. In general, you only need to add code to App.js.

Please use the following command to install the dependencies:

npm i

Functions starting with use are called Hooks. useState is a built-in Hook provided by React. You can find other built-in Hooks in the API reference. You can also write your own Hooks by combining the existing ones.

Hooks are more restrictive than other functions. You can only call Hooks at the top of your components (or other Hooks). If you want to use useState in a condition or a loop, extract a new component and put it there.

In the previous example, each MyButton had its own independent count, and when each button was clicked, only the count for the button clicked changed:

However, often you’ll need components to share data and always update together.

To make both MyButton components display the same count and update together, you need to move the state from the individual buttons “upwards” to the closest component containing all of them.

In this example, it is MyApp:

Now when you click either button, the count in MyApp will change, which will change both of the counts in MyButton. Here’s how you can express this in code.

First, move the state up from MyButton into MyApp:

// App.js
export default function MyApp() {
  const [count, setCount] = useState(0);

  function handleClick() {
    setCount(count + 1);
  }

  return (
    <div>
      <h1>Counters that update separately</h1>
      <MyButton />
      <MyButton />
    </div>
  );
}

function MyButton() {
  // ... we're moving code from here ...
}

Then, pass the state down from MyApp to each MyButton, together with the shared click handler. You can pass information to MyButton using the JSX curly braces, just like you previously did with built-in tags like <img>:

export default function MyApp() {
  const [count, setCount] = useState(0);

  function handleClick() {
    setCount(count + 1);
  }

  return (
    <div>
      <h1>Counters that update together</h1>
      <MyButton count={count} onClick={handleClick} />
      <MyButton count={count} onClick={handleClick} />
    </div>
  );
}

The information you pass down like this is called props. Now the MyApp component contains the count state and the handleClick event handler, and passes both of them down as props to each of the buttons.

Finally, change MyButton to read the props you have passed from its parent component:

function MyButton({ count, onClick }) {
  return <button onClick={onClick}>Clicked {count} times</button>;
}

When you click the button, the onClick handler fires. Each button’s onClick prop was set to the handleClick function inside MyApp, so the code inside of it runs. That code calls setCount(count + 1), incrementing the count state variable. The new count value is passed as a prop to each button, so they all show the new value. This is called “lifting state up”. By moving state up, you’ve shared it between components.

import { useState } from "react";

export default function MyApp() {
  const [count, setCount] = useState(0);

  function handleClick() {
    setCount(count + 1);
  }

  return (
    <div>
      <h1>Counters that update together</h1>
      <MyButton count={count} onClick={handleClick} />
      <MyButton count={count} onClick={handleClick} />
    </div>
  );
}

function MyButton({ count, onClick }) {
  return <button onClick={onClick}>Clicked {count} times</button>;
}

To run the project, use the following command. Then, you can refresh the Web 8080 Tab to preview the web page.

npm start

Summary

Congratulations! You have completed the Using Hooks lab. You can practice more labs in LabEx to improve your skills.