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🚀 Mastering useImperativeHandle in React & React Native: A Beginner’s Guide
🔹 Introduction
React provides various hooks to manage state, effects, and refs. One lesser-known but powerful hook is useImperativeHandle
. It allows you to customize the instance value that is exposed when using React.forwardRef
. This is especially useful when working with imperative actions in functional components.
In this blog, we’ll explore: ✅ What useImperativeHandle
does
✅ Why and when to use it
✅ A practical example with step-by-step implementation in React and React Native
✅ Pros and cons of using useImperativeHandle
🔹 What is useImperativeHandle
?
useImperativeHandle
is a React Hook that allows a parent component to call functions inside a child component using refs.
Syntax:
useImperativeHandle(ref, createHandle, [dependencies])
ref
→ The forwarded ref fromReact.forwardRef
.createHandle
→ A function that returns an object with methods exposed to the parent.[dependencies]
→ If specified, re-runs only when dependencies change.