What’s the concept of custom hooks, and why do we use them?

Custom hooks in React are JavaScript functions that utilize built-in React hooks or other custom hooks to encapsulate reusable logic in functional components. They follow a naming convention where the function name starts with “use” (e.g., useCustomHook). Custom hooks allow users to abstract complex logic into reusable units, promoting code reusability and maintainability in React applications.

Concept of Custom Hooks:

The custom hooks in React allow you to extract reusable logic from your components into standalone functions. These functions can then be shared across multiple components, promoting code reuse and improving code organization.

• Create a Custom Hook: Define a function with a name that starts with “use“. This function can contain any logic you want to reuse across components.

const CustomHookUsed = (initialValue) => {
    const [count, setCount] = useState(initialValue);

    const handleChange = (newValue) => {
        setCount(newValue);
    };

    return { count, handleChange };
};

• Use state and other hooks if needed: Inside your custom hook, you can use state, effects, and other hooks provided by React if necessary.

• Return values or functions: Ensure that your custom hook returns the values or functions that you want to use in your components.
• Use the custom hook in components: Import and use your custom hook in your functional components just like you would with built-in hooks.

import React from 'react';
import { CustomHookUsed } from './CustomHookUsed';

const App = () => {
    // Use your custom hook
    const { count, handleChange } = useCustomHook('initialValue');

    return (
        <div>
            <input
                type="text"
                value={count}
                onChange={(e) => handleChange(e.target.value)}
            />
        </div>
    );
};
export default App;

• Reuse across components: You can now reuse your custom hook across different components in your application to share the logic.

Why Do We Use Them:

• Code Reusability: One of the main reasons we use custom hooks is to reuse logic across multiple components. Instead of writing the same code again and again, we can create a custom hook once and use it wherever we need that specific functionality.
• Organization and Maintainability: Custom hooks help keep our code organized and easy to maintain. By separating complex logic into custom hooks, our components become cleaner and more focused on their main purpose. This makes it easier for us and other developers to understand and work with the codebase.
• Encapsulation of Concerns: Custom hooks allow us to encapsulate specific concerns or pieces of functionality into standalone units. This promotes better separation of concerns in our code, making it easier to reason about and test.
• Promote Reusability and Composition: Custom hooks encourage a more modular and composable approach to building React applications. We can create small, specialized hooks that focus on doing one thing well, and then combine them to create more complex behavior. This makes our code more flexible and easier to extend in the future.

Custom hooks are a powerful tool in the React developer’s toolkit. They help us write cleaner, more maintainable code by encapsulating logic, promoting reusability, and encouraging a modular approach to building components.