React Hooks and Component Lifecycle Equivalent

Question

What are the equivalents of the componentDidMount, componentDidUpdate, and componentWillUnmount lifecycle hooks using React hooks like useEffect?

Answer 1

componentDidMount

Pass an empty array as the second argument to useEffect() to run only the callback on mount only.

function ComponentDidMount() {
  const [count, setCount] = React.useState(0);
  React.useEffect(() => {
    console.log('componentDidMount');
  }, []);

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

ReactDOM.render(
  <div>
    <ComponentDidMount />
  </div>,
  document.querySelector("#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>

componentDidUpdate

componentDidUpdate() is invoked immediately after updating occurs. This method is not called for the initial render. useEffect runs on every render including the first. So if you want to have a strict equivalent as componentDidUpdate, you have to use useRef to determine if the component has been mounted once. If you want to be even stricter, use useLayoutEffect(), but it fires synchronously. In most cases, useEffect() should be sufficient.

This answer is inspired by Tholle, all credit goes to him.

function ComponentDidUpdate() {
  const [count, setCount] = React.useState(0);

  const isFirstUpdate = React.useRef(true);
  React.useEffect(() => {
    if (isFirstUpdate.current) {
      isFirstUpdate.current = false;
      return;
    }

    console.log('componentDidUpdate');
  });

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

ReactDOM.render(
  <ComponentDidUpdate />,
  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>

componentWillUnmount

Return a callback in useEffect's callback argument and it will be called before unmounting.

function ComponentWillUnmount() {
  function ComponentWillUnmountInner(props) {
    React.useEffect(() => {
      return () => {
        console.log('componentWillUnmount');
      };
    }, []);

    return (
      <div>
        <p>componentWillUnmount</p>
      </div>
    );
  }
  
  const [count, setCount] = React.useState(0);

  return (
    <div>
      {count % 2 === 0 ? (
        <ComponentWillUnmountInner count={count} />
      ) : (
        <p>No component</p>
      )}
      <button
        onClick={() => {
          setCount(count + 1);
        }}
      >
        Click Me
      </button>
    </div>
  );
}

ReactDOM.render(
  <div>
    <ComponentWillUnmount />
  </div>,
  document.querySelector("#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>