In ReactJS, hooks provide a more intuitive and powerful way to manage state and side effects in functional components, compared to using lifecycle methods. Hooks make it easy to share logic between components, and they are easy to understand and use.
A hook is a function that allows functional components to use state and lifecycle methods without the need to convert them to class components. The most commonly used hook is the useState hook, which allows functional components to have a local state.
import { useState } from 'react';
function MyComponent() {
const [count, setCount] = useState(0);
return <div>Count: {count}</div>
}
In this example, we use the useState hook to add a local state to the component. The hook returns an array with two elements, the current state and a function to update the state. In this case, the state is count and the function to update the state is setCount.
Another example is the useEffect hook, which allows functional components to handle side effects, such as fetching data or subscribing to a service.
import { useEffect, useState } from 'react';
function MyComponent() {
const [data, setData] = useState([]);
useEffect(() => {
fetch('https://api.example.com/data')
.then(response => response.json())
.then(data => setData(data));
}, []);
return <div>Data: {data}</div>
In this example, we use the useEffect hook to handle the side effect of fetching data from an API. The first argument of the useEffect is a function that will run on every render, this function is where we put our side effect logic. The second argument is an array of dependencies, in this case we passed an empty array, this means that the effect will only run once, on the first render.
One of the main benefits of using hooks is that they allow you to share logic between components. Instead of duplicating logic in multiple components, you can extract the logic into a custom hook and reuse it across multiple components. This makes it easy to reason about the logic of your application and make updates in one place.
Example of creating custom Hook to share Login between multiple components
In conclusion, using hooks instead of lifecycle methods is a best practice in ReactJS development. Hooks provide a more intuitive and powerful way to manage state and side effects in functional components, and they make it easy to share logic between components. They are easy to understand and use, and they allow for a more organized and maintainable codebase. Additionally, hooks allow functional components to use state and lifecycle methods, without the need to convert them to class components, which makes them a more modern and efficient way to handle state in React.
