useState is a React Hook that lets you add a state variable to your component.

const [state, setState] = useState(initialState);

Reference

useState(initialState)

Call useState at the top level of your component to declare a state variable.

import { useState } from 'react';

function MyComponent() {
  const [age, setAge] = useState(28);
  const [name, setName] = useState('Taylor');
  const [todos, setTodos] = useState(() => createTodos());
  // ...

The convention is to name state variables like [something, setSomething] using array destructuring.

See more examples below.

Parameters

  • initialState: The value you want the state to be initially. It can be a value of any type, but there is a special behavior for functions. This argument is ignored after the initial render.
    • If you pass a function as initialState, it will be treated as an initializer function. It should be pure, should take no arguments, and should return a value of any type. React will call your initializer function when initializing the component, and store its return value as the initial state. See an example below.

Returns

useState returns an array with exactly two values:

  1. The current state. During the first render, it will match the initialState you have passed.
  2. The set function that lets you update the state to a different value and trigger a re-render.

Caveats

  • useState is a Hook, so you can only call it at the top level of your component or your own Hooks. You can’t call it inside loops or conditions. If you need that, extract a new component and move the state into it.
  • In Strict Mode, React will call your initializer function twice in order to help you find accidental impurities. This is development-only behavior and does not affect production. If your initializer function is pure (as it should be), this should not affect the behavior. The result from one of the calls will be ignored.

set functions, like setSomething(nextState)

The set function returned by useState lets you update the state to a different value and trigger a re-render. You can pass the next state directly, or a function that calculates it from the previous state:

const [name, setName] = useState('Edward');

function handleClick() {
  setName('Taylor');
  setAge(a => a + 1);
  // ...

Parameters

  • nextState: The value that you want the state to be. It can be a value of any type, but there is a special behavior for functions.
    • If you pass a function as nextState, it will be treated as an updater function. It must be pure, should take the pending state as its only argument, and should return the next state. React will put your updater function in a queue and re-render your component. During the next render, React will calculate the next state by applying all of the queued updaters to the previous state. See an example below.

Returns

set functions do not have a return value.

Caveats

  • The set function only updates the state variable for the next render. If you read the state variable after calling the set function, you will still get the old value that was on the screen before your call.

  • If the new value you provide is identical to the current state, as determined by an Object.is comparison, React will skip re-rendering the component and its children. This is an optimization. Although in some cases React may still need to call your component before skipping the children, it shouldn’t affect your code.

  • React batches state updates. It updates the screen after all the event handlers have run and have called their set functions. This prevents multiple re-renders during a single event. In the rare case that you need to force React to update the screen earlier, for example to access the DOM, you can use flushSync.

  • Calling the set function during rendering is only allowed from within the currently rendering component. React will discard its output and immediately attempt to render it again with the new state. This pattern is rarely needed, but you can use it to store information from the previous renders. See an example below.

  • In Strict Mode, React will call your updater function twice in order to help you find accidental impurities. This is development-only behavior and does not affect production. If your updater function is pure (as it should be), this should not affect the behavior. The result from one of the calls will be ignored.

Usage

Adding state to a component

Call useState at the top level of your component to declare one or more state variables.

import { useState } from 'react';

function MyComponent() {
  const [age, setAge] = useState(42);
  const [name, setName] = useState('Taylor');
  // ...

The convention is to name state variables like [something, setSomething] using array destructuring.

useState returns an array with exactly two items:

  1. The current state of this state variable, initially set to the initial state you provided.
  2. The set function that lets you change it to any other value in response to interaction.

To update what’s on the screen, call the set function with some next state:

function handleClick() {
  setName('Robin');
}

React will store the next state, render your component again with the new values, and update the UI.

Pitfall

Calling the set function does not change the current state in the already executing code:

function handleClick() {
  setName('Robin');
  console.log(name); // Still "Taylor"!
}

It only affects what useState will return starting from the next render.

Basic useState examples

Example 1 of 4:
Counter (number)

In this example, the count state variable holds a number. Clicking the button increments it.

import { useState } from 'react';

export default function Counter() {
  const [count, setCount] = useState(0);

  function handleClick() {
    setCount(count + 1);
  }

  return (
    <button onClick={handleClick}>
      You pressed me {count} times
    </button>
  );
}

Updating state based on the previous state

Suppose the age is 42. This handler calls setAge(age + 1) three times:

function handleClick() {
  setAge(age + 1); // setAge(42 + 1)
  setAge(age + 1); // setAge(42 + 1)
  setAge(age + 1); // setAge(42 + 1)
}

However, after one click, age will only be 43 rather than 45! This is because calling the set function does not update the age state variable in the already running code. So each setAge(age + 1) call becomes setAge(43).

To solve this problem, you may pass an updater function to setAge instead of the next state:

function handleClick() {
  setAge(a => a + 1); // setAge(42 => 43)
  setAge(a => a + 1); // setAge(43 => 44)
  setAge(a => a + 1); // setAge(44 => 45)
}

Here, a => a + 1 is your updater function. It takes the pending state and calculates the next state from it.

React puts your updater functions in a queue. Then, during the next render, it will call them in the same order:

  1. a => a + 1 will receive 42 as the pending state and return 43 as the next state.
  2. a => a + 1 will receive 43 as the pending state and return 44 as the next state.
  3. a => a + 1 will receive 44 as the pending state and return 45 as the next state.

There are no other queued updates, so React will store 45 as the current state in the end.

By convention, it’s common to name the pending state argument for the first letter of the state variable name, like a for age. However, you may also call it like prevAge or something else that you find clearer.

React may call your updaters twice in development to verify that they are pure.

Deep Dive

Is using an updater always preferred?

You might hear a recommendation to always write code like setAge(a => a + 1) if the state you’re setting is calculated from the previous state. There is no harm in it, but it is also not always necessary.

In most cases, there is no difference between these two approaches. React always makes sure that for intentional user actions, like clicks, the age state variable would be updated before the next click. This means there is no risk of a click handler seeing a “stale” age at the beginning of the event handler.

However, if you do multiple updates within the same event, updaters can be helpful. They’re also helpful if accessing the state variable itself is inconvenient (you might run into this when optimizing re-renders).

If you prefer consistency over slightly more verbose syntax, it’s reasonable to always write an updater if the state you’re setting is calculated from the previous state. If it’s calculated from the previous state of some other state variable, you might want to combine them into one object and use a reducer.

The difference between passing an updater and passing the next state directly

Example 1 of 2:
Passing the updater function

This example passes the updater function, so the “+3” button works.

import { useState } from 'react';

export default function Counter() {
  const [age, setAge] = useState(42);

  function increment() {
    setAge(a => a + 1);
  }

  return (
    <>
      <h1>Your age: {age}</h1>
      <button onClick={() => {
        increment();
        increment();
        increment();
      }}>+3</button>
      <button onClick={() => {
        increment();
      }}>+1</button>
    </>
  );
}

Updating objects and arrays in state

You can put objects and arrays into state. In React, state is considered read-only, so you should replace it rather than mutate your existing objects. For example, if you have a form object in state, don’t mutate it:

// 🚩 Don't mutate an object in state like this:
form.firstName = 'Taylor';

Instead, replace the whole object by creating a new one:

// ✅ Replace state with a new object
setForm({
  ...form,
  firstName: 'Taylor'
});

Read updating objects in state and updating arrays in state to learn more.

Examples of objects and arrays in state

Example 1 of 4:
Form (object)

In this example, the form state variable holds an object. Each input has a change handler that calls setForm with the next state of the entire form. The { ...form } spread syntax ensures that the state object is replaced rather than mutated.

import { useState } from 'react';

export default function Form() {
  const [form, setForm] = useState({
    firstName: 'Barbara',
    lastName: 'Hepworth',
    email: 'bhepworth@sculpture.com',
  });

  return (
    <>
      <label>
        First name:
        <input
          value={form.firstName}
          onChange={e => {
            setForm({
              ...form,
              firstName: e.target.value
            });
          }}
        />
      </label>
      <label>
        Last name:
        <input
          value={form.lastName}
          onChange={e => {
            setForm({
              ...form,
              lastName: e.target.value
            });
          }}
        />
      </label>
      <label>
        Email:
        <input
          value={form.email}
          onChange={e => {
            setForm({
              ...form,
              email: e.target.value
            });
          }}
        />
      </label>
      <p>
        {form.firstName}{' '}
        {form.lastName}{' '}
        ({form.email})
      </p>
    </>
  );
}

Avoiding recreating the initial state

React saves the initial state once and ignores it on the next renders.

function TodoList() {
  const [todos, setTodos] = useState(createInitialTodos());
  // ...

Although the result of createInitialTodos() is only used for the initial render, you’re still calling this function on every render. This can be wasteful if it’s creating large arrays or performing expensive calculations.

To solve this, you may pass it as an initializer function to useState instead:

function TodoList() {
  const [todos, setTodos] = useState(createInitialTodos);
  // ...

Notice that you’re passing createInitialTodos, which is the function itself, and not createInitialTodos(), which is the result of calling it. If you pass a function to useState, React will only call it during initialization.

React may call your initializers twice in development to verify that they are pure.

The difference between passing an initializer and passing the initial state directly

Example 1 of 2:
Passing the initializer function

This example passes the initializer function, so the createInitialTodos function only runs during initialization. It does not run when component re-renders, such as when you type into the input.

import { useState } from 'react';

function createInitialTodos() {
  const initialTodos = [];
  for (let i = 0; i < 50; i++) {
    initialTodos.push({
      id: i,
      text: 'Item ' + (i + 1)
    });
  }
  return initialTodos;
}

export default function TodoList() {
  const [todos, setTodos] = useState(createInitialTodos);
  const [text, setText] = useState('');

  return (
    <>
      <input
        value={text}
        onChange={e => setText(e.target.value)}
      />
      <button onClick={() => {
        setText('');
        setTodos([{
          id: todos.length,
          text: text
        }, ...todos]);
      }}>Add</button>
      <ul>
        {todos.map(item => (
          <li key={item.id}>
            {item.text}
          </li>
        ))}
      </ul>
    </>
  );
}

Resetting state with a key

You’ll often encounter the key attribute when rendering lists. However, it also serves another purpose.

You can reset a component’s state by passing a different key to a component. In this example, the Reset button changes the version state variable, which we pass as a key to the Form. When the key changes, React re-creates the Form component (and all of its children) from scratch, so its state gets reset.

Read preserving and resetting state to learn more.

import { useState } from 'react';

export default function App() {
  const [version, setVersion] = useState(0);

  function handleReset() {
    setVersion(version + 1);
  }

  return (
    <>
      <button onClick={handleReset}>Reset</button>
      <Form key={version} />
    </>
  );
}

function Form() {
  const [name, setName] = useState('Taylor');

  return (
    <>
      <input
        value={name}
        onChange={e => setName(e.target.value)}
      />
      <p>Hello, {name}.</p>
    </>
  );
}

Storing information from previous renders

Usually, you will update state in event handlers. However, in rare cases you might want to adjust state in response to rendering — for example, you might want to change a state variable when a prop changes.

In most cases, you don’t need this:

In the rare case that none of these apply, there is a pattern you can use to update state based on the values that have been rendered so far, by calling a set function while your component is rendering.

Here’s an example. This CountLabel component displays the count prop passed to it:

export default function CountLabel({ count }) {
  return <h1>{count}</h1>
}

Say you want to show whether the counter has increased or decreased since the last change. The count prop doesn’t tell you this — you need to keep track of its previous value. Add the prevCount state variable to track it. Add another state variable called trend to hold whether the count has increased or decreased. Compare prevCount with count, and if they’re not equal, update both prevCount and trend. Now you can show both the current count prop and how it has changed since the last render.

import { useState, useEffect } from 'react';

export default function CountLabel({ count }) {
  const [prevCount, setPrevCount] = useState(count);
  const [trend, setTrend] = useState(null);

  useEffect(() => {
    if (prevCount !== count) {
      setPrevCount(count);
      setTrend(count > prevCount ? 'increasing' : 'decreasing');
    }
  }, [count, prevCount]);

  if (trend === null) {
    // Early return if trend is null to avoid rendering the <p> element
    return (
      <>
        <h1>{count}</h1>
      </>
    );
  }

  return (
    <>
      <h1>{count}</h1>
      <p>The count is {trend}</p>
    </>
  );
}

Note that if you call a set function while rendering, it must be inside a condition like prevCount !== count, and there must be a call like setPrevCount(count) inside of the condition. Otherwise, your component would re-render in a loop until it crashes. Also, you can only update the state of the currently rendering component like this. Calling the set function of another component during rendering is an error. Finally, your set call should still update state without mutation — this doesn’t mean you can break other rules of pure functions.

This pattern can be hard to understand and is usually best avoided. However, it’s better than updating state in an effect. When you call the set function during render, React will re-render that component immediately after your component exits with a return statement, and before rendering the children. This way, children don’t need to render twice. The rest of your component function will still execute (and the result will be thrown away). If your condition is below all the Hook calls, you may add an early return; to restart rendering earlier.

Troubleshooting

I’ve updated the state, but logging gives me the old value

Calling the set function does not change state in the running code:

function handleClick() {
  console.log(count);  // 0

  setCount(count + 1); // Request a re-render with 1
  console.log(count);  // Still 0!

  setTimeout(() => {
    console.log(count); // Also 0!
  }, 5000);
}

This is because states behaves like a snapshot. Updating state requests another render with the new state value, but does not affect the count JavaScript variable in your already-running event handler.

If you need to use the next state, you can save it in a variable before passing it to the set function:

const nextCount = count + 1;
setCount(nextCount);

console.log(count);     // 0
console.log(nextCount); // 1

I’ve updated the state, but the screen doesn’t update

React will ignore your update if the next state is equal to the previous state, as determined by an Object.is comparison. This usually happens when you change an object or an array in state directly:

obj.x = 10;  // 🚩 Wrong: mutating existing object
setObj(obj); // 🚩 Doesn't do anything

You mutated an existing obj object and passed it back to setObj, so React ignored the update. To fix this, you need to ensure that you’re always replacing objects and arrays in state instead of mutating them:

// ✅ Correct: creating a new object
setObj({
  ...obj,
  x: 10
});

I’m getting an error: “Too many re-renders”

You might get an error that says: Too many re-renders. React limits the number of renders to prevent an infinite loop. Typically, this means that you’re unconditionally setting state during render, so your component enters a loop: render, set state (which causes a render), render, set state (which causes a render), and so on. Very often, this is caused by a mistake in specifying an event handler:

// 🚩 Wrong: calls the handler during render
return <button onClick={handleClick()}>Click me</button>

// ✅ Correct: passes down the event handler
return <button onClick={handleClick}>Click me</button>

// ✅ Correct: passes down an inline function
return <button onClick={(e) => handleClick(e)}>Click me</button>

If you can’t find the cause of this error, click on the arrow next to the error in the console and look through the JavaScript stack to find the specific set function call responsible for the error.

My initializer or updater function runs twice

In Strict Mode, React will call some of your functions twice instead of once:

function TodoList() {
  // This component function will run twice for every render.

  const [todos, setTodos] = useState(() => {
    // This initializer function will run twice during initialization.
    return createTodos();
  });

  function handleClick() {
    setTodos(prevTodos => {
      // This updater function will run twice for every click.
      return [...prevTodos, createTodo()];
    });
  }
  // ...

This is expected and shouldn’t break your code.

This development-only behavior helps you keep components pure. React uses the result of one of the calls, and ignores the result of the other call. As long as your component, initializer, and updater functions are pure, this shouldn’t affect your logic. However, if they are accidentally impure, this helps you notice the mistakes.

For example, this impure updater function mutates an array in state:

setTodos(prevTodos => {
  // 🚩 Mistake: mutating state
  prevTodos.push(createTodo());
});

Because React calls your updater function twice, you’ll see the todo was added twice, so you’ll know that there is a mistake. In this example, you can fix the mistake by replacing the array instead of mutating it:

setTodos(prevTodos => {
  // ✅ Correct: replacing with new state
  return [...prevTodos, createTodo()];
});

Now that this updater function is pure, calling it an extra time doesn’t make a difference in behavior. This is why React calling it twice helps you find mistakes. Only component, initializer, and updater functions need to be pure. Event handlers don’t need to be pure, so React will never call your event handlers twice.

Read keeping components pure to learn more.

I’m trying to set state to a function, but it gets called instead

You can’t put a function into state like this:

const [fn, setFn] = useState(someFunction);

function handleClick() {
  setFn(someOtherFunction);
}

Because you’re passing a function, React assumes that someFunction is an initializer function, and that someOtherFunction is an updater function, so it tries to call them and store the result. To actually store a function, you have to put () => before them in both cases. Then React will store the functions you pass.

const [fn, setFn] = useState(() => someFunction);

function handleClick() {
  setFn(() => someOtherFunction);
}
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