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Core React Interview Questions & Answers 2026
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- Geeks Kai
- @KaiGeeks
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This comprehensive guide focuses on Core React interview questions covering fundamental React concepts. Whether you're preparing for your first React.js interview or looking to refresh your knowledge, this resource provides detailed answers with code examples to help you succeed.
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Keywords: Core React interview questions, React JS interview questions, React.js interview questions, interview questions on react js Key Features:
This section covers fundamental React JS interview questions about React basics, including JSX, components, props, state, and the Virtual DOM. These are essential concepts that every React developer should master.
React (also known as React.js or ReactJS) is an open-source front-end JavaScript library for building user interfaces based on components. It's used for handling the view layer in web and mobile applications, and allows developers to create reusable UI components and manage the state of those components efficiently.
Key facts about React:
React was created by Jordan Walke, a software engineer at Facebook (now Meta). It was first deployed on Facebook's News Feed in 2011 and on Instagram in 2012. The library was open-sourced in May 2013 and has since become one of the most popular JavaScript libraries for building modern user interfaces.
The history of ReactJS started in 2010 with the creation of XHP. XHP is a PHP extension which improved the syntax of the language such that XML document fragments become valid PHP expressions and the primary purpose was used to create custom and reusable HTML elements.
The main principle of this extension was to make front-end code easier to understand and to help avoid cross-site scripting attacks. The project was successful to prevent the malicious content submitted by the scrubbing user.
But there was a different problem with XHP in which dynamic web applications require many roundtrips to the server, and XHP did not solve this problem. Also, the whole UI was re-rendered for small change in the application. Later, the initial prototype of React is created with the name FaxJ by Jordan inspired from XHP. Finally after sometime React has been introduced as a new library into JavaScript world.
The evolution of React has a fascinating history that spans over a decade:
2010-2011: The Origins
2011-2012: Early Development
2013: Public Release
2014-2015: Growing Adoption
2016-2018: Maturation
2019-Present: Modern React
Note: JSX, React's syntax extension, was indeed inspired by XHP's approach of embedding XML-like syntax in code.
JSX stands for JavaScript XML and it is an XML-like syntax extension to ECMAScript. Basically it just provides the syntactic sugar for the React.createElement(type, props, ...children) function, giving us expressiveness of JavaScript along with HTML like template syntax.
In the example below, the text inside <h1> tag is returned as JavaScript function to the render function.
export default function App() {
return <h1 className="greeting">{"Hello, this is a JSX Code!"}</h1>
}
If you don't use JSX syntax then the respective JavaScript code should be written as below,
import { createElement } from "react"
export default function App() {
return createElement("h1", { className: "greeting" }, "Hello, this is a JSX Code!")
}
class App extends React.Component {
render() {
return <h1 className="greeting">{"Hello, this is a JSX Code!"}</h1>
}
}
Note: JSX is stricter than HTML
Element:
A React Element is a plain JavaScript object that describes what you want to see on the UI. It represents a DOM node or a component at a specific point in time.
Elements are immutable: once created, you cannot change their properties. Instead, you create new elements to reflect updates.
Elements can be nested within other elements through their props.
Creating an element is a fast, lightweight operation—it does not create any actual DOM nodes or render anything to the screen directly.
Example (without JSX):
const element = React.createElement("button", { id: "login-btn" }, "Login")
Equivalent JSX syntax:
<button id="login-btn">Login</button>
The object returned by React.createElement:
{
type: 'button',
props: {
id: 'login-btn',
children: 'Login'
}
}
Elements are then passed to the React DOM renderer (e.g., ReactDOM.render()), which translates them to actual DOM nodes.
Component:
A Component is a function or class that returns an element (or a tree of elements) to describe part of the UI. Components can accept inputs (called props) and manage their own state (in case of class or function components with hooks).
Components allow you to split the UI into independent, reusable pieces, each isolated and composable.
You can define a component using a function or a class:
Example (Function Component with JSX):
const Button = ({ handleLogin }) => (
<button id="login-btn" onClick={handleLogin}>
Login
</button>
)
When JSX is compiled, it's transformed into a tree of React.createElement calls:
const Button = ({ handleLogin }) =>
React.createElement("button", { id: "login-btn", onClick: handleLogin }, "Login")
In summary:
Think of elements as the instructions for creating UI, and components as reusable blueprints that combine logic and structure to generate those instructions.
Components are the building blocks of creating User Interfaces(UI) in React. There are two possible ways to create a component.
Function Components: This is the simplest way to create a component. Those are pure JavaScript functions that accept props object as the one and only one parameter and return React elements to render the output:
function Greeting({ message }) {
return <h1>{`Hello, ${message}`}</h1>
}
Class Components: You can also use ES6 class to define a component. The above function component can be written as a class component:
class Greeting extends React.Component {
render() {
return <h1>{`Hello, ${this.props.message}`}</h1>
}
}
After the addition of Hooks(i.e. React 16.8 onwards) it is always recommended to use Function components over Class components in React. Because you could use state, lifecycle methods and other features that were only available in class component present in function component too.
But even there are two reasons to use Class components over Function components.
So the summary to this question is as follows:
Use Function Components:
Use Class Components:
Note: You can also use reusable react error boundary third-party component without writing any class. i.e, No need to use class components for Error boundaries.
The usage of Error boundaries from the above library is quite straight forward.
Note when using react-error-boundary: ErrorBoundary is a client component. You can only pass props to it that are serializable or use it in files that have a
"use client";directive.
"use client"
import { ErrorBoundary } from "react-error-boundary"
;<ErrorBoundary fallback={<div>Something went wrong</div>}>
<ExampleApplication />
</ErrorBoundary>
Pure components are the components which render the same output for the same state and props. In function components, you can achieve these pure components through memoized React.memo() API wrapping around the component. This API prevents unnecessary re-renders by comparing the previous props and new props using shallow comparison. So it will be helpful for performance optimizations.
But at the same time, it won't compare the previous state with the current state because function component itself prevents the unnecessary rendering by default when you set the same state again.
The syntactic representation of memoized components looks like below,
const MemoizedComponent = memo(SomeComponent, arePropsEqual?);
Below is the example of how child component(i.e., EmployeeProfile) prevents re-renders for the same props passed by parent component(i.e.,EmployeeRegForm).
import { memo, useState } from "react"
const EmployeeProfile = memo(function EmployeeProfile({ name, email }) {
return (
<>
<p>Name:{name}</p>
<p>Email: {email}</p>
</>
)
})
export default function EmployeeRegForm() {
const [name, setName] = useState("")
const [email, setEmail] = useState("")
return (
<>
<label>
Name: <input value={name} onChange={(e) => setName(e.target.value)} />
</label>
<label>
Email: <input value={email} onChange={(e) => setEmail(e.target.value)} />
</label>
<hr />
<EmployeeProfile name={name} />
</>
)
}
In the above code, the email prop has not been passed to child component. So there won't be any re-renders for email prop change.
In class components, the components extending React.PureComponent instead of React.Component become the pure components. When props or state changes, PureComponent will do a shallow comparison on both props and state by invoking shouldComponentUpdate() lifecycle method.
Note: React.memo() is a higher-order component.
State of a component is an object that holds some information that may change over the lifetime of the component. The important point is whenever the state object changes, the component re-renders. It is always recommended to make our state as simple as possible and minimize the number of stateful components.
Let's take an example of User component with message state. Here, useState hook has been used to add state to the User component and it returns an array with current state and function to update it.
import { useState } from "react"
function User() {
const [message, setMessage] = useState("Welcome to React world")
return (
<div>
<h1>{message}</h1>
</div>
)
}
Whenever React calls your component or access useState hook, it gives you a snapshot of the state for that particular render.
import React from "react";
class User extends React.Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props);
this.state = {
message: "Welcome to React world",
};
}
render() {
return (
<div>
<h1>{this.state.message}</h1>
</div>
);
}
}
State is similar to props, but it is private and fully controlled by the component ,i.e., it is not accessible to any other component till the owner component decides to pass it.
Props are inputs to components. They are single values or objects containing a set of values that are passed to components on creation similar to HTML-tag attributes. Here, the data is passed down from a parent component to a child component.
The primary purpose of props in React is to provide following component functionality:
this.props.reactProp inside component's render() method.For example, let us create an element with reactProp property:
<Element reactProp={"1"} />
This reactProp (or whatever you came up with) attribute name then becomes a property attached to React's native props object which originally already exists on all components created using React library.
props.reactProp
For example, the usage of props in function component looks like below:
import React from "react"
import ReactDOM from "react-dom"
const ChildComponent = (props) => {
return (
<div>
<p>{props.name}</p>
<p>{props.age}</p>
<p>{props.gender}</p>
</div>
)
}
const ParentComponent = () => {
return (
<div>
<ChildComponent name="John" age="30" gender="male" />
<ChildComponent name="Mary" age="25" geneder="female" />
</div>
)
}
The properties from props object can be accessed directly using destructing feature from ES6 (ECMAScript 2015). It is also possible to fallback to default value when the prop value is not specified. The above child component can be simplified like below.
const ChildComponent = ({ name, age, gender = "male" }) => {
return (
<div>
<p>{name}</p>
<p>{age}</p>
<p>{gender}</p>
</div>
)
}
Note: The default value won't be used if you pass null or 0 value. i.e, default value is only used if the prop value is missed or undefined value has been passed.
import React from "react"
import ReactDOM from "react-dom"
class ChildComponent extends React.Component {
render() {
return (
<div>
<p>{this.props.name}</p>
<p>{this.props.age}</p>
<p>{this.props.gender}</p>
</div>
)
}
}
class ParentComponent extends React.Component {
render() {
return (
<div>
<ChildComponent name="John" age="30" gender="male" />
<ChildComponent name="Mary" age="25" gender="female" />
</div>
)
}
}
In React, both state and props are plain JavaScript objects, but they serve different purposes and have distinct behaviors:
setState in class components or the updater function from useState in functional components).| Feature | State | Props |
|---|---|---|
| Managed by | The component itself | Parent component |
| Mutable | Yes | No (read-only) |
| Scope | Local to the component | Passed from parent to child |
| Usage | Manage dynamic data and UI changes | Configure and customize component |
| Update | Using setState/useState | Cannot be updated by the component |
Below are some of the main differences between HTML and React event handling,
In HTML, the event name usually represents in lowercase as a convention:
<button onclick="activateLasers()"></button>
Whereas in React it follows camelCase convention:
<button onClick={activateLasers}>
In HTML, you can return false to prevent default behavior:
<a href="#" onclick='console.log("The link was clicked."); return false;' />
Whereas in React you must call preventDefault() explicitly:
function handleClick(event) {
event.preventDefault()
console.log("The link was clicked.")
}
In HTML, you need to invoke the function by appending () Whereas in react you should not append () with the function name. (refer "activateLasers" function in the first point for example)
SyntheticEvent is a cross-browser wrapper around the browser's native event. Its API is same as the browser's native event, including stopPropagation() and preventDefault(), except the events work identically across all browsers. The native events can be accessed directly from synthetic events using nativeEvent attribute.
Let's take an example of BookStore title search component with the ability to get all native event properties
function BookStore() {
function handleTitleChange(e) {
console.log("The new title is:", e.target.value)
console.log("Synthetic event:", e) // React SyntheticEvent
console.log("Native event:", e.nativeEvent) // Browser native event
e.stopPropagation()
e.preventDefault()
}
return <input name="title" onChange={handleTitleChange} />
}
List of common synthetic events are:
onClickonChangeonSubmitonKeyDown, onKeyUponFocus, onBluronMouseEnter, onMouseLeaveonTouchStart, onTouchEndYou can use either if statements or ternary expressions which are available in JS(and JSX in React) to conditionally execute or render expressions. Apart from these approaches, you can also embed any expressions in JSX by wrapping them in curly braces and then followed by JS logical operator &&. It is helpful to render elements conditionally within a single line and commonly used for concise logic, especially in JSX rendering.
;<h1>Hello!</h1>
{
messages.length > 0 && !isLogin ? (
<h2>You have {messages.length} unread messages.</h2>
) : (
<h2>You don't have unread messages.</h2>
)
}
A key is a special attribute you should include when mapping over arrays to render data. Key prop helps React identify which items have changed, are added, or are removed.
Keys should be unique among its siblings. Most often we use ID from our data as key:
const todoItems = todos.map((todo) => <li key={todo.id}>{todo.text}</li>)
When you don't have stable IDs for rendered items, you may use the item index as a key as a last resort:
const todoItems = todos.map((todo, index) => <li key={index}>{todo.text}</li>)
Benefits of key:
Note:
li tag.key prop is not present on list items.key={Math.random()}. Because the keys will never match up between re-renders and DOM created everytime.The Virtual DOM (VDOM) is a lightweight, in-memory representation of Real DOM used by libraries like React to optimize UI rendering. The representation of a UI is kept in memory and synced with the "real" DOM. It's a step that happens between the render function being called and the displaying of elements on the screen. This entire process is called reconciliation.
The Virtual DOM works in five simple steps.
1. Initial Render When a UI component renders for the first time, it returns JSX. React uses this structure to create a Virtual DOM tree, which is a lightweight copy of the actual DOM. This Virtual DOM is then used to build and render the Real DOM in the browser.
2. State or Props Change When the component's state or props change, React creates a new Virtual DOM reflecting the updated UI. However, it doesn't immediately update the Real DOM; instead, it works in memory to prepare for an efficient update.
3. Diffing Algorithm React then compares the new Virtual DOM with the previous one using a process called diffing. It determines what has changed between the two versions and identifies the minimal set of updates needed.
4. Reconciliation Based on the diffing results, React decides which parts of the Real DOM should be updated. It avoids re-rendering the entire DOM and instead updates only the elements that actually changed.
5. Efficient DOM Updates This entire process—working with the Virtual DOM, diffing, and selective updating—makes the UI rendering much faster and more efficient than manipulating the Real DOM directly.
The Shadow DOM is a browser technology designed primarily for scoping variables and CSS in web components. The Virtual DOM is a concept implemented by libraries in JavaScript on top of browser APIs.
The key differences in a table format shown below:
| Feature | Shadow DOM | Virtual DOM |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Encapsulation for Web Components | Efficient UI rendering |
| Managed by | Browser | JS frameworks (e.g., React) |
| DOM Type | Part of real DOM (scoped) | In-memory representation |
| Encapsulation | Yes | No |
| Use Case | Web Components, scoped styling | UI diffing and minimal DOM updates |
React Fiber is the new reconciliation engine in React, introduced in React 16. It’s a complete rewrite of React’s core algorithm(old stack-based algorithm) for rendering and updating the UI. Fiber enhances React’s ability to handle asynchronous rendering, prioritized updates(assign priority to different types of updates), and interruption(ability to pause, abort, or reuse work) of rendering work, enabling smoother and more responsive user interfaces.
The goal of React Fiber is to increase its suitability for areas like animation, layout, and gestures. Its headline feature is incremental rendering: the ability to split rendering work into chunks and spread it out over multiple frames.
Its main goals are:
A controlled component is a React component that fully manages the form element's state(e.g, elements like <input>, <textarea>, or <select>)) using React's internal state mechanism. i.e, The component does not manage its own internal state — instead, React acts as the single source of truth for form data.
The controlled components will be implemented using the below steps,
useState hooks in function components or inside constructor for class components.onChange) to handle the user input changes through useState's updater function or setState from class component.Note: React re-renders the component every time the input value changes.
For example, the name input field updates the username using handleChange event handler as below,
import React, { useState } from "react"
function UserProfile() {
const [username, setUsername] = useState("")
const handleChange = (e) => {
setUsername(e.target.value)
}
return (
<form>
<label>
Name:
<input type="text" value={username} onChange={handleChange} />
</label>
</form>
)
}
In these components, DOM does not hold the actual data instead React does.
Benefits:
The Uncontrolled components are form elements (like <input>, <textarea>, or <select>) that manage their own state internally via the DOM, rather than through React state. You can query the DOM using a ref to find its current value when you need it. This is a bit more like traditional HTML.
The uncontrolled components will be implemented using the below steps,
useRef react hook in function component or React.createRef() in class based component.ref to the form element.ref in event handlers or componentDidMount for class componentsIn the below UserProfile component, the username input is accessed using ref.
import React, { useRef } from "react"
function UserProfile() {
const usernameRef = useRef(null)
const handleSubmit = (event) => {
event.preventDefault()
console.log("The submitted username is: " + usernameRef.current.value)
}
return (
<form onSubmit={handleSubmit}>
<label>
Username:
<input type="text" ref={usernameRef} />
</label>
<button type="submit">Submit</button>
</form>
)
}
Note: Here, DOM is in charge of the value. React only accesses the value when needed (via ref).
Benefits:
useState and onChange.In most cases, it's recommend to use controlled components to implement forms. In a controlled component, form data is handled by a React component. The alternative is uncontrolled components, where form data is handled by the DOM itself.
class UserProfile extends React.Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props);
this.handleSubmit = this.handleSubmit.bind(this);
this.input = React.createRef();
}
handleSubmit(event) {
alert("A name was submitted: " + this.input.current.value);
event.preventDefault();
}
render() {
return (
<form onSubmit={this.handleSubmit}>
<label>
{"Name:"}
<input type="text" ref={this.input} />
</label>
<input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>
);
}
}
Both React.createElement and React.cloneElement are used to work with React elements, but they serve different purposes.
Creates a new React element from scratch. JSX elements will be transpiled to React.createElement() functions to create React elements which are going to be used for the object representation of UI. Syntax:
React.createElement(type, props, ...children)
Example:
React.createElement("button", { className: "btn" }, "Click Me")
The cloneElement method is used to clone an existing React element and optionally adds or overrides props.
Syntax:
React.cloneElement(element, newProps, ...children)
Example:
const button = <button className="btn">Click Me</button>
const cloned = React.cloneElement(button, { className: "btn-primary" })
// Result: <button className="btn-primary">Click Me</button>
When several components need to share the same changing data then it is recommended to lift the shared state up to their closest common ancestor. That means if two child components share the same data from its parent, then move the state to parent instead of maintaining local state in both of the child components.
A higher-order component (HOC) is a function that takes a component and returns a new enhanced component with additional props, behavior, or data. It’s a design pattern based on React’s compositional nature, allowing you to reuse logic across multiple components without modifying their internals.
We consider HOCs pure components because they don’t mutate or copy behavior from the original component—they simply wrap it, enhance it, and pass through the necessary props. The wrapped component remains decoupled and reusable.
const EnhancedComponent = higherOrderComponent(WrappedComponent)
Let's take an example of a withAuth higher-order component (HOC) in React. This HOC will check if a user is authenticated and either render the wrapped component if authenticated or redirect (or show a message) if not.
withAuth HOC Example:
import React from "react"
import { Navigate } from "react-router-dom" // For redirection (assuming React Router v6)
const isAuthenticated = () => {
// e.g., check for a valid token in localStorage or context
return !!localStorage.getItem("authToken")
}
function withAuth(WrappedComponent) {
return function AuthenticatedComponent(props) {
if (!isAuthenticated()) {
// User is NOT authenticated, redirect to login page
return <Navigate to="/login" replace />
}
// User is authenticated, render the wrapped component
return <WrappedComponent {...props} />
}
}
export default withAuth
Usage
import React from "react"
import withAuth from "./withAuth"
function Dashboard() {
return <h1>Welcome to the Dashboard!</h1>
}
// Wrap Dashboard with withAuth HOC
export default withAuth(Dashboard)
HOC can be used for many use cases:
Some of the real-world examples of HOCs in react eco-system:
The children prop is a special prop in React used to pass elements between the opening and closing tags of a component. It is commonly used in layout and wrapper componnents.
A simple usage of children prop looks as below,
function MyDiv({ children }) {
return <div>{children}</div>
}
export default function Greeting() {
return (
<MyDiv>
<span>{"Hello"}</span>
<span>{"World"}</span>
</MyDiv>
)
}
Here, everything inside <MyDiv>...</MyDiv> is passed as children to the custom div component.
The children can be text, JSX elements, fragments, arrays and functions(for advance use case like render props).
const MyDiv = React.createClass({
render: function () {
return <div>{this.props.children}</div>;
},
});
ReactDOM.render(
<MyDiv>
<span>{"Hello"}</span>
<span>{"World"}</span>
</MyDiv>,
node
);
Note: There are several methods available in the legacy React API to work with this prop. These include React.Children.map, React.Children.forEach, React.Children.count, React.Children.only, React.Children.toArray.
No, currently React.lazy function supports default exports only. If you would like to import modules which are named exports, you can create an intermediate module that reexports it as the default. It also ensures that tree shaking keeps working and don’t pull unused components. Let's take a component file which exports multiple named components,
// MoreComponents.js
export const SomeComponent = /* ... */;
export const UnusedComponent = /* ... */;
and reexport MoreComponents.js components in an intermediate file IntermediateComponent.js
// IntermediateComponent.js
export { SomeComponent as default } from "./MoreComponents.js"
Now you can import the module using lazy function as below,
import React, { lazy } from "react"
const SomeComponent = lazy(() => import("./IntermediateComponent.js"))
className over class attribute?React uses className instead of class because of a JavaScript naming conflict with the class keyword.
class is a reserved keyword in JavaScript In JavaScript, class is used to define ES6 classes:
class Person {
constructor(name) {
this.name = name
}
}
If you try to use class as a variable or property name, it will throw a syntax error. Since JSX is just JavaScript with XML-like syntax, using class directly in JSX would break the parser.
JSX Is JavaScript
When you write JSX like this:
<div class="btn">Click</div>
It will be compiled to:
React.createElement("div", { class: "btn" }, "Click")
But class is invalid in this object literal context (since it clashes with the JS keyword), hence React instead uses className.
<div className="btn">Click</div>
which compiles to:
React.createElement("div", { className: "btn" }, "Click")
React then translates className to class in the final HTML DOM.
Aligns with DOM APIs In vanilla JavaScript, you interact with element classes using:
element.className = "my-class"
React follows this convention, staying consistent with the DOM API's property name rather than HTML’s attribute.
It's a common pattern or practice in React for a component to return multiple elements. Fragments let you group a list of children without adding extra nodes to the DOM. You need to use either <Fragment> or a shorter syntax having empty tag (<></>).
Below is the example of how to use fragment inside Story component.
function Story({ title, description, date }) {
return (
<Fragment>
<h2>{title}</h2>
<p>{description}</p>
<p>{date}</p>
</Fragment>
)
}
It is also possible to render list of fragments inside a loop with the mandatory key attribute supplied.
function StoryBook() {
return stories.map((story) => (
<Fragment key={story.id}>
<h2>{story.title}</h2>
<p>{story.description}</p>
<p>{story.date}</p>
</Fragment>
))
}
Usually, you don't need to use <Fragment> until there is a need of key attribute. The usage of shorter syntax looks like below.
function Story({ title, description, date }) {
return (
<>
<h2>{title}</h2>
<p>{description}</p>
<p>{date}</p>
</>
)
}
Below are the list of reasons to prefer fragments over container DOM elements,
A Portal is a React feature that enables rendering children into a DOM node that exists outside the parent component's DOM hierarchy, while still preserving the React component hierarchy. Portals help avoid CSS stacking issues—for example, elements with position: fixed may not behave as expected inside a parent with transform. Portals solve this by rendering content (like modals or tooltips) outside such constrained DOM contexts.
ReactDOM.createPortal(child, container)
child: Any valid React node (e.g., JSX, string, fragment).container: A real DOM node (e.g., document.getElementById('modal-root')).Even though the content renders elsewhere in the DOM, it still behaves like a normal child in React. It has access to context, state, and event handling.
Example:- Modal:
function Modal({ children }) {
return ReactDOM.createPortal(
<div className="modal">{children}</div>,
document.body)
);
}
The above code will render the modal content into the body element in the HTML, not inside the component's usual location.
If the behaviour of a component is independent of its state then it can be a stateless component. You can use either a function or a class for creating stateless components. But unless you need to use a lifecycle hook in your components, you should go for function components. There are a lot of benefits if you decide to use function components here; they are easy to write, understand, and test, a little faster, and you can avoid the this keyword altogether.
If the behaviour of a component is dependent on the state of the component then it can be termed as stateful component. These stateful components are either function components with hooks or class components.
Let's take an example of function stateful component which update the state based on click event,
import React, { useState } from "react"
function App() {
const [count, setCount] = useState(0)
const handleIncrement = () => {
setCount(count + 1)
}
return (
<>
<button onClick={handleIncrement}>Increment</button>
<span>Counter: {count}</span>
</>
)
}
constructor.class App extends Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props)
this.state = { count: 0 }
}
handleIncrement() {
this.setState({ count: this.state.count + 1 })
}
render() {
return (
<>
<button onClick={() => this.handleIncrement()}>Increment</button>
<span>Count: {this.state.count}</span>
</>
)
}
}
When the application is running in development mode, React will automatically check all props that we set on components to make sure they have correct type. If the type is incorrect, React will generate warning messages in the console. It's disabled in production mode due to performance impact. The mandatory props are defined with isRequired.
The set of predefined prop types:
PropTypes.numberPropTypes.stringPropTypes.arrayPropTypes.objectPropTypes.funcPropTypes.nodePropTypes.elementPropTypes.boolPropTypes.symbolPropTypes.anyWe can define propTypes for User component as below:
import React from "react";
import PropTypes from "prop-types";
class User extends React.Component {
static propTypes = {
name: PropTypes.string.isRequired,
age: PropTypes.number.isRequired,
};
render() {
return (
<>
<h1>{`Welcome, ${this.props.name}`}</h1>
<h2>{`Age, ${this.props.age}`}</h2>
</>
);
}
}
Note: In React v15.5 PropTypes were moved from React.PropTypes to prop-types library.
The Equivalent Functional Component
import React from "react";
import PropTypes from "prop-types";
function User({ name, age }) {
return (
<>
<h1>{`Welcome, ${name}`}</h1>
<h2>{`Age, ${age}`}</h2>
</>
);
}
User.propTypes = {
name: PropTypes.string.isRequired,
age: PropTypes.number.isRequired,
};
Below are the list of main advantages of React,
Apart from the advantages, there are few limitations of React too,
Normally we use PropTypes library (React.PropTypes moved to a prop-types package since React v15.5) for type checking in the React applications. For large code bases, it is recommended to use static type checkers such as Flow or TypeScript, that perform type checking at compile time and provide auto-completion features.
react-dom package?The react-dom package provides DOM-specific methods that can be used at the top level of your app. Most of the components are not required to use this module. Some of the methods of this package are:
render()hydrate()unmountComponentAtNode()findDOMNode()createPortal()The ReactDOMServer object enables you to render components to static markup (typically used on node server). This object is mainly used for server-side rendering (SSR). The following methods can be used in both the server and browser environments:
renderToString()renderToStaticMarkup()For example, you generally run a Node-based web server like Express, Hapi, or Koa, and you call renderToString to render your root component to a string, which you then send as response.
// using Express
import { renderToString } from "react-dom/server";
import MyPage from "./MyPage";
app.get("/", (req, res) => {
res.write(
"<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><title>My Page</title></head><body>"
);
res.write('<div id="content">');
res.write(renderToString(<MyPage />));
res.write("</div></body></html>");
res.end();
});
The dangerouslySetInnerHTML attribute is React's replacement for using innerHTML in the browser DOM. Just like innerHTML, it is risky to use this attribute considering cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. You just need to pass a __html object as key and HTML text as value.
In this example MyComponent uses dangerouslySetInnerHTML attribute for setting HTML markup:
function createMarkup() {
return { __html: "First · Second" };
}
function MyComponent() {
return <div dangerouslySetInnerHTML={createMarkup()} />;
}
The style attribute accepts a JavaScript object with camelCased properties rather than a CSS string. This is consistent with the DOM style JavaScript property, is more efficient, and prevents XSS security holes.
const divStyle = {
color: "blue",
backgroundImage: "url(" + imgUrl + ")",
};
function HelloWorldComponent() {
return <div style={divStyle}>Hello World!</div>;
}
Style keys are camelCased in order to be consistent with accessing the properties on DOM nodes in JavaScript (e.g. node.style.backgroundImage).
Handling events in React elements has some syntactic differences:
Keys should be stable, predictable, and unique so that React can keep track of elements.
In the below code snippet each element's key will be based on ordering, rather than tied to the data that is being represented. This limits the optimizations that React can do and creates confusing bugs in the application.
{
todos.map((todo, index) => <Todo {...todo} key={index} />);
}
If you use element data for unique key, assuming todo.id is unique to this list and stable, React would be able to reorder elements without needing to reevaluate them as much.
{
todos.map((todo) => <Todo {...todo} key={todo.id} />);
}
Note: If you don't specify key prop at all, React will use index as a key's value while iterating over an array of data.
In some cases you want to render different components depending on some state. JSX does not render false or undefined, so you can use conditional short-circuiting to render a given part of your component only if a certain condition is true.
const MyComponent = ({ name, address }) => (
<div>
<h2>{name}</h2>
{address && <p>{address}</p>}
</div>
);
If you need an if-else condition then use ternary operator.
const MyComponent = ({ name, address }) => (
<div>
<h2>{name}</h2>
{address ? <p>{address}</p> : <p>{"Address is not available"}</p>}
</div>
);
When we spread props we run into the risk of adding unknown HTML attributes, which is a bad practice. Instead we can use prop destructuring with ...rest operator, so it will add only required props.
For example,
const ComponentA = () => (
<ComponentB isDisplay={true} className={"componentStyle"} />
);
const ComponentB = ({ isDisplay, ...domProps }) => (
<div {...domProps}>{"ComponentB"}</div>
);
There are memoize libraries available which can be used on function components.
For example moize library can memoize the component in another component.
import moize from "moize";
import Component from "./components/Component"; // this module exports a non-memoized component
const MemoizedFoo = moize.react(Component);
const Consumer = () => {
<div>
{"I will memoize the following entry:"}
<MemoizedFoo />
</div>;
};
Update: Since React v16.6.0, we have a React.memo. It provides a higher order component which memoizes component unless the props change. To use it, simply wrap the component using React.memo before you use it.
const MemoComponent = React.memo(function MemoComponent(props) {
/* render using props */
});
OR;
export default React.memo(MyFunctionComponent);
React is already equipped to handle rendering on Node servers. A special version of the DOM renderer is available, which follows the same pattern as on the client side.
import ReactDOMServer from "react-dom/server";
import App from "./App";
ReactDOMServer.renderToString(<App />);
This method will output the regular HTML as a string, which can be then placed inside a page body as part of the server response. On the client side, React detects the pre-rendered content and seamlessly picks up where it left off.
You should use Webpack's DefinePlugin method to set NODE_ENV to production, by which it strip out things like propType validation and extra warnings. Apart from this, if you minify the code, for example, Uglify's dead-code elimination to strip out development only code and comments, it will drastically reduce the size of your bundle.
A switching component is a component that renders one of many components. We need to use object to map prop values to components.
For example, a switching component to display different pages based on page prop:
import HomePage from "./HomePage";
import AboutPage from "./AboutPage";
import ServicesPage from "./ServicesPage";
import ContactPage from "./ContactPage";
const PAGES = {
home: HomePage,
about: AboutPage,
services: ServicesPage,
contact: ContactPage,
};
const Page = (props) => {
const Handler = PAGES[props.page] || ContactPage;
return <Handler {...props} />;
};
// The keys of the PAGES object can be used in the prop types to catch dev-time errors.
Page.propTypes = {
page: PropTypes.oneOf(Object.keys(PAGES)).isRequired,
};
Pointer Events provide a unified way of handling all input events. In the old days we had a mouse and respective event listeners to handle them but nowadays we have many devices which don't correlate to having a mouse, like phones with touch surface or pens. We need to remember that these events will only work in browsers that support the Pointer Events specification.
The following event types are now available in React DOM:
onPointerDownonPointerMoveonPointerUponPointerCancelonGotPointerCaptureonLostPointerCaptureonPointerEnteronPointerLeaveonPointerOveronPointerOutIf you are rendering your component using JSX, the name of that component has to begin with a capital letter otherwise React will throw an error as an unrecognized tag. This convention is because only HTML elements and SVG tags can begin with a lowercase letter.
function SomeComponent() {
// Code goes here
return <div>Some Component</div>;
}
You can define function component whose name starts with lowercase letter, but when it's imported it should have a capital letter. Here lowercase is fine:
function myComponent() {
return <div>My Component</div>;
}
export default myComponent;
While when imported in another file it should start with capital letter:
import MyComponent from "./myComponent";
If you want to pass an array of objects to a component with a particular shape then use React.PropTypes.shape() as an argument to React.PropTypes.arrayOf().
ReactComponent.propTypes = {
arrayWithShape: React.PropTypes.arrayOf(
React.PropTypes.shape({
color: React.PropTypes.string.isRequired,
fontSize: React.PropTypes.number.isRequired,
})
).isRequired,
};
You shouldn't use curly braces inside quotes because it is going to be evaluated as a string.
<div className="btn-panel {this.props.visible ? 'show' : 'hidden'}">
Instead you need to move curly braces outside (don't forget to include spaces between class names):
<div className={'btn-panel ' + (this.props.visible ? 'show' : 'hidden')}>
Template strings will also work:
<div className={`btn-panel ${this.props.visible ? 'show' : 'hidden'}`}>
The react package contains React.createElement(), React.Component, React.Children, and other helpers related to elements and component classes. You can think of these as the isomorphic or universal helpers that you need to build components. The react-dom package contains ReactDOM.render(), and in react-dom/server we have server-side rendering support with ReactDOMServer.renderToString() and ReactDOMServer.renderToStaticMarkup().
The React team worked on extracting all DOM-related features into a separate library called ReactDOM. React v0.14 is the first release in which the libraries are split. By looking at some of the packages, react-native, react-art, react-canvas, and react-three, it has become clear that the beauty and essence of React has nothing to do with browsers or the DOM.
To build more environments that React can render to, React team planned to split the main React package into two: react and react-dom. This paves the way to writing components that can be shared between the web version of React and React Native.
If you try to render a <label> element bound to a text input using the standard for attribute, then it produces HTML missing that attribute and prints a warning to the console.
<label for={'user'}>{'User'}</label>
<input type={'text'} id={'user'} />
Since for is a reserved keyword in JavaScript, use htmlFor instead.
<label htmlFor={'user'}>{'User'}</label>
<input type={'text'} id={'user'} />
We can use <pre> tag so that the formatting of the JSON.stringify() is retained:
const data = { name: "John", age: 42 };
function User() {
return <pre>{JSON.stringify(data, null, 2)}</pre>;
}
const container = createRoot(document.getElementById("container"));
container.render(<User />);
const data = { name: "John", age: 42 };
class User extends React.Component {
render() {
return <pre>{JSON.stringify(data, null, 2)}</pre>;
}
}
React.render(<User />, document.getElementById("container"));
You need to use useEffect hook to set focus on input field during page load time for functional component.
import React, { useEffect, useRef } from "react";
const App = () => {
const inputElRef = useRef(null);
useEffect(() => {
inputElRef.current.focus();
}, []);
return (
<div>
<input defaultValue={"Won't focus"} />
<input ref={inputElRef} defaultValue={"Will focus"} />
</div>
);
};
ReactDOM.render(<App />, document.getElementById("app"));
input element and using it in componentDidMount():class App extends React.Component {
componentDidMount() {
this.nameInput.focus();
}
render() {
return (
<div>
<input defaultValue={"Won't focus"} />
<input
ref={(input) => (this.nameInput = input)}
defaultValue={"Will focus"}
/>
</div>
);
}
}
ReactDOM.render(<App />, document.getElementById("app"));
Automatic batching in React groups multiple state updates that occur within the same event loop into a single re-render, rather than re-rendering after each update.
setCount(c => c + 1);
setFlag(f => !f);
// React batches these → only one re-render
Result:
Fewer renders → less DOM work, better performance, and smoother UI.
React Portals render a component's output outside its parent DOM hierarchy into a different part of the DOM tree.
import { createPortal } from "react-dom";
function Modal({ children }) {
return createPortal(
<div className="modal">{children}</div>,
document.getElementById("modal-root")
);
}
They solve the following problems:
React Strict Mode is a development feature in React that activates extra checks and warnings to help identify potential issues in your app.
<React.StrictMode>
<App />
</React.StrictMode>
Wrapping components in <React.StrictMode> activates these development checks without affecting production builds.
Code splitting enhances performance by dividing code into smaller chunks loaded on demand, thereby reducing initial load times. This can be achieved through dynamic import() statements or using React's React.lazy and Suspense.
// Using React.lazy and Suspense
const LazyComponent = React.lazy(() => import('./LazyComponent'));
function App() {
return (
<React.Suspense fallback={<div>Loading...</div>}>
<LazyComponent />
</React.Suspense>
);
}
Optimizing context performance involves memoizing context values with useMemo, splitting contexts for isolated state changes, and employing selectors to rerender only necessary components.
const value = useMemo(() => ({ state, dispatch }), [state, dispatch]);
Additional strategies:
In React, one-way data flow means data moves from parent to child components through props.
function Parent() {
const [count, setCount] = React.useState(0);
return <Child count={count} increment={() => setCount(count + 1)} />;
}
function Child({ count, increment }) {
return <button onClick={increment}>Count: {count}</button>;
}
This ensures data flows in one direction, making the app more predictable.
Context in React can lead to performance issues if not handled carefully, causing unnecessary re-renders of components that consume the context, even if only part of the context changes. Overusing context for state management can also make the code harder to maintain and understand. It's best to use context sparingly and consider other state management solutions like Redux or Zustand for more complex scenarios.
Common pitfalls:
React anti-patterns are practices that can lead to inefficient or hard-to-maintain code. Common examples include:
setStatecomponentWillMount for data fetchingcomponentWillReceivePropsChoosing between React state, context, and external state managers depends on your application's complexity. Use React state for local component state, context for global state shared across multiple components, and external managers like Redux or MobX for complex state management requiring advanced features like optimizing re-renders.
Decision guide:
setState is called in React?When setState is called in React:
function Counter() {
const [count, setCount] = React.useState(0);
const increment = () => {
setCount(count + 1); // Calls setState to update state
};
return <button onClick={increment}>Count: {count}</button>;
}
In this example, calling setState (via setCount) triggers a re-render with the updated count.
Prop drilling is when you pass data from a parent component to a deeply nested child component through props, even if intermediate components don't use it.
function Grandparent() {
const data = 'Hello from Grandparent';
return <Parent data={data} />;
}
function Parent({ data }) {
return <Child data={data} />;
}
function Child({ data }) {
return <p>{data}</p>;
}
In this example, data is passed through multiple components, even though only the Child component uses it. Prop drilling is acceptable for small applications where the component hierarchy is shallow. When global state is needed to be accessed in deeper levels of the app, using context and/or external state managers might be better.
Lazy loading in React is a technique where components are loaded only when they are needed, rather than at the initial page load. This helps reduce the initial load time and improve performance by splitting the code into smaller chunks.
import React, { Suspense, lazy } from 'react';
const LazyComponent = lazy(() => import('./LazyComponent'));
function App() {
return (
<Suspense fallback={<div>Loading...</div>}>
<LazyComponent />
</Suspense>
);
}
In this example, LazyComponent is loaded only when it's rendered, and while loading, a fallback UI (Loading...) is displayed.
Synthetic events in React are a wrapper around native DOM events that ensure consistent behavior across browsers. They normalize the way events are handled, providing a unified API for React applications.
These events are wrapped in the SyntheticEvent object and offer methods like preventDefault() and stopPropagation() to control event behavior. React uses event pooling to reuse event objects, which helps optimize performance.
function MyComponent() {
const handleClick = (event) => {
event.preventDefault();
console.log('Button clicked');
};
return <button onClick={handleClick}>Click me</button>;
}
In this example, handleClick handles the click event consistently across all browsers using a synthetic event.
Concurrent Mode allows React to work on multiple tasks simultaneously without blocking the main UI thread. It enables React to prioritize updates and provide smoother rendering for complex applications.
Key benefits:
To avoid blocking the UI, use Web Workers, setTimeout, or requestIdleCallback for offloading heavy computations. Alternatively, break tasks into smaller parts and use React's Suspense or useMemo to only recompute when necessary.
const [data, setData] = useState(null);
useEffect(() => {
setTimeout(() => {
const result = computeExpensiveData();
setData(result);
}, 0);
}, []);
Additional strategies:
useMemo for expensive calculationsuseDeferredValue for non-urgent updatesIn React, the presentational vs container component pattern distinguishes between components that focus on appearance (presentational components) and those that manage logic and state (container components). Presentational components render HTML and CSS, while container components handle data and behavior. This separation leads to a cleaner and more organized codebase.
Presentational components:
Container components:
Render props in React allow code sharing between components through a prop that is a function. This function returns a React element, enabling data to be passed to child components. This technique facilitates logic reuse without relying on higher-order components or hooks.
class DataFetcher extends React.Component {
state = { data: null };
componentDidMount() {
fetch(this.props.url)
.then((response) => response.json())
.then((data) => this.setState({ data }));
}
render() {
return this.props.render(this.state.data);
}
}
// Usage
<DataFetcher
url="/api/data"
render={(data) => <div>{data ? data.name : 'Loading...'}</div>}
/>
The composition pattern in React involves building components by combining smaller, reusable ones instead of using inheritance. This encourages creating complex UIs by passing components as children or props.
function WelcomeDialog() {
return (
<Dialog>
<h1>Welcome</h1>
<p>Thank you for visiting our spacecraft!</p>
</Dialog>
);
}
function Dialog(props) {
return <div className="dialog">{props.children}</div>;
}
Benefits:
Asynchronous data loading uses useEffect alongside useState hooks; fetching data inside useEffect updates state with fetched results ensuring re-renders occur with new data.
import React, { useState, useEffect } from 'react';
const FetchAndDisplayData = () => {
const [info, updateInfo] = useState(null);
const [isLoading, toggleLoading] = useState(true);
useEffect(() => {
const retrieveData = async () => {
try {
const res = await fetch('https://api.example.com/data');
const data = await res.json();
updateInfo(data);
} catch (err) {
console.error('Error fetching data:', err);
} finally {
toggleLoading(false);
}
};
retrieveData();
}, []);
return (
<div>
{isLoading ? (
<p>Fetching data, please wait...</p>
) : (
<pre>{JSON.stringify(info, null, 2)}</pre>
)}
</div>
);
};
export default FetchAndDisplayData;
Common pitfalls in data fetching with React include failing to handle loading and error states, neglecting to clean up subscriptions which can cause memory leaks, and improperly using lifecycle methods or hooks. Always ensure proper handling of these states, clean up after components, and utilize useEffect for side effects in functional components.
Common mistakes:
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