UPDATE 09/11/2020
This solution is no longer needed on eslint-plugin-react-hooks@4.1.0 and above.
Now useMemo and useCallback can safely receive referential types as dependencies.#19590
function MyComponent() {
const foo = ['a', 'b', 'c']; // <== This array is reconstructed each render
const normalizedFoo = useMemo(() => foo.map(expensiveMapper), [foo]);
return <OtherComponent foo={normalizedFoo} />
}
Here is another example of how to safely stabilize(normalize) a callback
const Parent = () => {
const [message, setMessage] = useState('Greetings!')
return (
<h3>
{ message }
</h3>
<Child setter={setMessage} />
)
}
const Child = ({
setter
}) => {
const stableSetter = useCallback(args => {
console.log('Only firing on mount!')
return setter(args)
}, [setter])
useEffect(() => {
stableSetter('Greetings from child\'s mount cycle')
}, [stableSetter]) //now shut up eslint
const [count, setCount] = useState(0)
const add = () => setCount(c => c + 1)
return (
<button onClick={add}>
Rerender {count}
</button>
)
}
Now referential types with stable signature such as those provenients from useState or useDispatch can safely be used inside an effect without triggering exhaustive-deps even when coming from props
---
Old answer
dispatch comes from a custom hook so it doesn't have an stable signature therefore will change on each render (reference equality). Add an aditional layer of dependencies by wrapping the handler inside an useCallback hook
const [foo, dispatch] = myCustomHook()
const stableDispatch = useCallback(dispatch, []) //assuming that it doesn't need to change
useEffect(() =>{
stableDispatch(foo)
},[stableDispatch])
useCallback and useMemo are helper hooks with the main purpose off adding an extra layer of dependency check to ensure synchronicity. Usually you want to work with useCallback to ensure a stable signature to a prop that you know how will change and React doesn't.
A function(reference type) passed via props for example
const Component = ({ setParentState }) =>{
useEffect(() => setParentState('mounted'), [])
}
Lets assume you have a child component which uppon mounting must set some state in the parent (not usual), the above code will generate a warning of undeclared dependency in useEffect, so let's declare setParentState as a dependency to be checked by React
const Component = ({ setParentState }) =>{
useEffect(() => setParentState('mounted'), [setParentState])
}
Now this effect runs on each render, not only on mounting, but on each update. This happens because setParentState is a function which is recreated every time the function Component gets called. You know that setParentState won't change it's signature overtime so it's safe to tell React that. By wrapping the original helper inside an useCallback you're doing exactly that (adding another dependency check layer).
const Component = ({ setParentState }) =>{
const stableSetter = useCallback(() => setParentState(), [])
useEffect(() => setParentState('mounted'), [stableSetter])
}
There you go. Now React knows that stableSetter won't change it's signature inside the lifecycle therefore the effect do not need too run unecessarily.
On a side note useCallback it's also used like useMemo, to optmize expensive function calls (memoization).
The two mai/n purposes of useCallback are
