React UseContext is Simple

Why use UseContext?

React useContext hook is used to create global data that can be accessed throughout the component hierarchy without the need to keep passing the props down manually to each component level.

This process of manually passing props down each level of child components (even though some child level does not need the data) to eventually reach the target child component is called Prop Drilling. Using useContext can help resolve this tedious process of Prop Drilling!

Simplified code snippets

In Parent component or App.js, we just need to create & export the context, literally by using the createContext hooks! Simply use these few lines of code:

// in App.js
import {createContext} from 'react';
export const contextToPassDown = createContext();

Then wrap the context Provider over the child components you wish to provide the context

<contextToPassDown.Provider value={dataToPassDown}>
   <ChildComponent />
</contextToPassDown.Provider>

Then in any Child components that are wrapped by the tag, we just need to use the useContext hooks!

// in ChildComponent.js
import {useContext} from 'react';
import {contextToPassDown} from App.js;

const ChildComponent=()=>{
  const contextToUse = useContext(contextToPassDown);

  return (<div> {contextToUse.username} </div>);
}

export default ChildComponent;

The use cases for useContext are usually:

To Pass down logged-in user info to authorized components
For 'light' or 'dark' theme

You may practice using this link to: codesandbox

Top comments (8)

Sergei Garcia • Nov 9 '21

Congrats on your second post! But I agree with @code913 , this is a pretty low quality post. Some tips for your next one:

Always assume your reader has no idea what you are talking about. Nowhere in your article did you explain what React Context was, what problem it solves, or why you should use it
Consider annotating your code examples with more comments.
Consider a longer article length. Too short and it comes off as low quality and something that could have been a comment. Too long and people won't find it interesting.