By default, React will always re-render the component each time there is a change in state or props value. A Pure Component is a component that performs a check on the value of React props before deciding whether to re-render the component or not. Let me show you by an example.
Class-based PureComponent
Imagine you have an application that displays a movie title and release status:
export default class App extends React.Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props);
this.state = {
title: "Titanic",
isReleased: true
};
}
toogleRelease = () => {
console.log("toogleRelease");
this.setState((prevState) => ({
isReleased: !prevState.isReleased
}));
};
render() {
const { title, isReleased } = this.state;
return (
<>
<MovieTitle title={title} />
<h1>Movie is released: {isReleased ? "yes" : "no"} </h1>
<button onClick={this.toogleRelease}>Toogle Release</button>
</>
);
}
}
Next, you have a MovieTitle component with the following content:
class MovieTitle extends React.Component {
render() {
console.log("MovieTitle is rendered");
return <h1>Movie title {this.props.title} </h1>;
}
}
Here’s a running demo.
When you change the isReleased value by click on the button, you’ll find that MovieTitle gets re-rendered because React will print the log to the console. But actually, MovieTitle component doesn’t need to re-render because even if the value of isReleased is changed, its output remains the same.
To prevent the re-rendering and optimize your React app performance, you can extends the PureComponent class instead of Component:
class MovieTitle extends React.PureComponent {
}
Now when you click on toogle release, you won’t see React printing the log because MovieTitle will check the props and determine whether to render or not.
function-based PureComponent
You can do the same with function-based components, but instead of extending the PureComponent class, you need to wrap the function component with React.memo(), which memoize (cache) the output of the component.
The function will return a memoized component that you can call from other components:
function MovieTitle(){
}
const MemoizedMovie = React.memo(MovieTitle)
Now you just need to call the memoized MovieTitle inside App component:
render() {
return (
<MemoizedMovie title={title} />
);
}
React’s “pure component” is a performance optimization method which implements the shouldComponentUpdate method underneath, but you should only use it sparingly, or even none at all. Here’s why.
More about React:
- Should you use spread attributes when passing props
- How to write if else structure in React JSX
- Should you use arrow functions in React components?
- How to iterate over and render array data in React
Related articles:
