🍕 useRef #

useRef #

const refContainer = useRef(initialValue);

useRef returns a mutable ref object whose .current property is initialized to the passed argument (initialValue). The returned object will persist for the full lifetime of the component.

A common use case is to access a child imperatively:

function TextInputWithFocusButton() {
  const inputEl = useRef(null);
  const onButtonClick = () => {
    // `current` points to the mounted text input element
    inputEl.current.focus();
  };
  return (
    <>
      <input ref={inputEl} type="text" />
      <button onClick={onButtonClick}>Focus the input</button>
    </>
  );
}

Essentially, useRef is like a “box” that can hold a mutable value in its .current property.

You might be familiar with refs primarily as a way to access the DOM. If you pass a ref object to React with <div ref={myRef} />, React will set its .current property to the corresponding DOM node whenever that node changes.

However, useRef() is useful for more than the ref attribute. It’s handy for keeping any mutable value around similar to how you’d use instance fields in classes.

This works because useRef() creates a plain JavaScript object. The only difference between useRef() and creating a {current: ...} object yourself is that useRef will give you the same ref object on every render.

Keep in mind that useRef doesn’t notify you when its content changes. Mutating the .current property doesn’t cause a re-render. If you want to run some code when React attaches or detaches a ref to a DOM node, you may want to use a callback ref instead.