Make React useEffect hook not run on initial render

Question

According to the docs:

componentDidUpdate() is invoked immediately after updating occurs. This method is not called for the initial render.

We can use the new useEffect() hook to simulate componentDidUpdate(), but it seems like useEffect() is being ran after every render, even the first time. How do I get it to not run on initial render?

As you can see in the example below, componentDidUpdateFunction is printed during the initial render but componentDidUpdateClass was not printed during the initial render.

Answer 1

We can use the useRef hook to store any mutable value we like, so we could use that to keep track of if it's the first time the useEffect function is being run.

If we want the effect to run in the same phase that componentDidUpdate does, we can use useLayoutEffect instead.

Example

const { useState, useRef, useLayoutEffect } = React;

function ComponentDidUpdateFunction() {
  const [count, setCount] = useState(0);

  const firstUpdate = useRef(true);
  useLayoutEffect(() => {
    if (firstUpdate.current) {
      firstUpdate.current = false;
      return;
    }

    console.log("componentDidUpdateFunction");
  });

  return (
    <div>
      <p>componentDidUpdateFunction: {count} times</p>
      <button
        onClick={() => {
          setCount(count + 1);
        }}
      >
        Click Me
      </button>
    </div>
  );
}

ReactDOM.render(
  <ComponentDidUpdateFunction />,
  document.getElementById("app")
);

<script src="https://unpkg.com/[email protected]/umd/react.development.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/[email protected]/umd/react-dom.development.js"></script>

<div id="app"></div>