React Custom Hooks: What They Are and How to Use Them

Promote Code Reusability

When React.js developers create custom hooks, they can reuse the logic in those hooks across React function components. This approach helps reduce manual coding, as developers can copy and paste custom hooks into their code faster than manually writing the logic for a function each time. Aside from making code cleaner and more concise, the code will also render faster, reducing unnecessary waiting.

Aside from promoting code reusability, custom hooks help enforce software development standards for a development team. This helps make the code more consistent and easier to predict the code’s behavior. This is one of many reasons why React is so popular for front-end UI development.

Improve Code Readability

React custom hooks improve code readability by eliminating unnecessary boilerplate code. Instead of comprehending several lines of code, developers need only understand the logic behind a single phrase. For instance, if a developer sees the previously mentioned “useOnline” hook, they know the purpose of that hook is to track whether a user is online.

Let’s say you hire a development team to create a banking app. For security reasons, you request a feature that automatically logs out an inactive user. After creating the logic for this feature, the team encapsulates that logic into a custom hook so they can use it across the entire app. By reducing unnecessary code, the code loads faster and is easier to read.

Streamline Code Maintenance

React apps with other hooks can help streamline code maintenance. Let’s say you need to update a feature. Sure, a developer could manually rewrite each instance of that logic, but that would be time-consuming. Instead, the developer can update the logic within a custom hook and update each instance of that hook – replacing the old with the new.

Aside from streamlining maintenance, custom hooks also reduce the risk of introducing new bugs.

Share Logic Between Multiple Components

You request a feature that shows a user their network connection status. The developer creates a state, tracking when the network is online, and an Effect, denoting the state as online or offline. The developer successfully implements the network connection feature in the app.

Then, you request a new feature, the ability for a user to save their settings. However, the user can only do this while online. To save time, the developer encapsulates the component logic of the previous feature into a custom hook. They use this custom hook to power a new component, a button that says ‘Save’ when the user is online and ‘Reconnect’ when the user is offline. This way, the button changes its appearance and separate function in response to the user’s network status.

Hide Complex Logic

You request a new feature that lets a user copy text to a clipboard. When the developer types out the stateful logic for this feature, it occupies about 27 lines of code.

To improve code readability, the developer stores the logic of this feature into the custom hook phrase “useCopyToClipboard.” The developer uses this custom hook four times during development. So, instead of writing 108 lines of code, the developer writes only four lines to achieve the same outcome.

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