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Rafi
Rafi

Posted on

Simple React hook to handle input

When building in react often you have to deal with different inputs like text, number, date... and each time it is kind of annoying to write onChange handlers with same boiler plate code to handle the local state. I wrote a really simple hook to avoid that boiler plate

import { useState, useCallback } from 'react';

const useInput = initialValue => {
  const [value, setValue] = useState(initialValue);

  const handleChange = useCallback(
    event => {
      setValue(event.target.value);
    },
    [setValue]
  );

  return { value, handleChange, setValue };
};

export default useInput;

and you can use this as follows

import useInput from './useInput';

const App = () => {
  const { value, handleChange } = useInput('');

  return <input value={value} onChange={handleChange} />;
};

export default App;

Latest comments (5)

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narendersaini32 profile image
Narender Saini

I think you need to pass value as dependency to useCallback instead of setValue ?

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rafi993 profile image
Rafi

The value used inside handleChange is event.target.value different from outside value.

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narendersaini32 profile image
Narender Saini

I mean instead of
const handleChange = useCallback(
event => {
setValue(event.target.value);
},
[setValue]
);

this you can write

const handleChange = useCallback(
event => {
setValue(event.target.value);
},
[value]
);

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rafi993 profile image
Rafi

Hmm. I don't think value needs to be passed as dependency since it not being used but I need to check.

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tiguchi profile image
Thomas Werner • Edited

I think your original code is correct and adding value as a dependency would be a mistake. It's not referenced inside the callback, nor should it be added as a dependency, otherwise your callback function would be re-created on every single value change, which would defy the purpose of using that callback hook there. There's no reason for your event handler to change when the input value changes.

React's console output usually contains good information and warning messages about missing dependencies. So if value or anything else was required for your callback you would see that in your log output.