React Force Rerender: Complete Guide

React was launched over ten years ago to make it easy for developers to build application user interfaces. It does a pretty good job, to begin with, but you may face several issues as the application gets bigger and more complex.

There are several underlying factors behind this; one is React rerender. It is a feature in React that refreshes components after they undergo a change—even if that change is minor or insignificant. The problem is that it can cause your application to waste valuable resources and make users wait longer for a response.

The good news is that there are ways to overcome this and rerender in a way to reduce its frequency while improving your React application’s performance. The most effective technique for this is React Force Rerender.

This comprehensive guide provides in-depth insight into React Force Rerender and how it can help you overcome the issues that arise when rerendering occurs automatically during application development in React.

What Is Rerender In React?

You can appreciate the importance of React Force Rerender once you understand rerender in React and what it does. Whenever there is a change in a React application’s state or props, the rerender feature will refresh the component on the screen automatically.

State objects store property values assigned to a component in React. A change to these property values will cause the rerendering of the associated component to the new state and object. Props, short for properties, are also rerendered in the same way whenever a change is made to them.  Rerendering in React happens mainly to update certain on-screen information in a streamlined way.

Why is this important? Let’s say you’ve built a website on React. Whenever you change the website, the whole page reloads when the re-rending feature is unavailable. With the rerendering feature, you can overcome this problem, as it will only update the components you’re interacting with on the screen.

What Is the Process That Makes Rerender Tick?

Before you hire React JS developers to work on your application, you should get some information on the rerendering process so you know you’re hiring people with the proper knowledge and skills. One of the most important parts of the React rerendering process is the Virtual DOM.

It is a lightweight version of the website page’s structure represented by the DOM (Document Object Model). The lightweight nature of the Virtual DOM allows it to work faster than the actual DOM, and you can manipulate it more easily.

React refreshes the Virtual DOM every time a web page is fed data. It compares the Virtual DOM’s current and previous versions to identify changes, determines how best to update the real DOM, and then makes the changes. All of this is done quickly and automatically. It happens whenever a web page receives external data or when a user inputs text or swipes down to interact with the page.

Why Is Rerender In React Important?

While React Force Rerender is an effective way to manage rerender in React, you must partially avoid it. React rerendering is an important step in ensuring a good user experience. Here is how rerender in React helps React JS development services to improve the user experience:

• Provides feedback automatically to inputs by users such as numbers, text, and button presses
• Makes application development in React more streamlined
• Ensures there are no unnecessary page reloads
• Updates the user interface (UI) components on the screen by using only the necessary resources, which helps to boost performance

When you hire React JS developers for your project, you can manually save the time spent on coding to instruct a web page when to perform rerendering by utilizing the rerendering function. It will accelerate the development of your application and will help the React JS development services you hire to complete your project within budget and on time.

What Are The Issues With React Rerendering That Make React Force Rerender Necessary?

While rerender in React is a vital feature, the last thing you’d want is for it to rerender unnecessarily or when it is not needed.  One example of this is a rerender, which happens when a website’s architecture has an inherent flaw. It typically occurs when the state and props of a component are incorrectly updated.

The best way to explain this is with a real-world example. Suppose you’re building a website or application on React with an online form you want customers to complete and submit. You will have many unnecessary rerenders if the application or web page rerenders every time the users input a new text character. It is a problem because your website will be heavy on resources and load incredibly slowly.

It is optional to completely avoid unnecessary rerenders, but if there are too many of them, your website or application will not perform well, and the user experience will be severely impacted.

What Is Force Rerender in React?

Now that you understand what rerender in React is, how it works, why it’s essential, and when it can be a problem, we can begin learning about React Force Rerender and how it can help overcome the issues caused by rerender in React.

As mentioned in the beginning, one of the biggest problems with rerendering in React is that it can cause too many unnecessary rerenders, which can impact a website’s or application’s performance. One way around this is to force rerender in React. It means rerendering a component by force even when the internal factors associated with its state or props have not changed.

React Force Rerender typically occurs when the React JS development services you hire want to force update the component based on outside factors, not those directly related to a component’s state or props. An excellent example would be forcing a component in React to display the current time to rerender so it updates the displayed time every second.

Why Should Your Force Rerender in React?

There are many reasons to want to force rerender in React, but updating the React component’s tree should be at the top of the priority list. You can save time manually resetting all the values by force resetting each element to the initial state.

Another reason to perform React Force Rerender is when you don’t have control of the libraries you’re working with. One example would be a developer working in React using a headless user interface (UI) accordion component. In this case, the developer can only use the React library to identify the default close or open state, but they won’t be able to close it manually. The only solution here would be to force rerender to close the accordion automatically.

How to Force Rerender in React?

Force rerendering in React is not common, and it typically happens when the codebase has an underlying bug. However, that is not the only reason you would want to force rerender a component when hiring React JS developers to develop your website or application.

No matter your reason for wanting to perform React Force Rerender, you can do it using a few different techniques.

SetState method

If you’re looking for an easy way to force rerender in React, the setState technique is the best option for you. React will look into the rerendering process every time a developer gives a setState command and the framework encounters it. A force rerender is typically performed using this command when a state or props change.

Keyprop manipulation

If you want to perform advanced React Force Rerender, you need to use the keyprop manipulation technique. This technique works best for React components that are list-dependent. React spots a change in these components by using keys. So, you can force rerender a list-dependent class component using the keyprop manipulation designed for this purpose.

 ForceUpdate method

If you want to refresh an entire React component by bypassing the typical approach to props change or usual component state, forceUpdate is the force rerender technique you need to use. This technique may be necessary if you want to rerender the component based on external factors. Also, there is no better way to React Force Rerender than forceUpdate directly. The only downside is that this technique can severely impact import React’s performance. So, you’re best off using forceUpdate sparingly.

When Should You Avoid Force Rerendering in React?

You may be tempted to hit that refresh button when annoyed with React rendering components automatically when unnecessary, but you shouldn’t do things in haste. You may not realize this, but force rerendering a component without any afterthought can have many negative consequences. Some of these consequences include:

• Overloading The Reconciliation Process: You will have to do a lot of avoidable work if you overuse force rerender and overload the reconciliation process. Think of force rerendering constantly as painting your home every day. It doesn’t make sense, right? The same is the case when you overuse React Force Rerender.
• Side Effects: There are a few side effects of force rerendering a component in React. Some unintended consequences include glitches in the user interface (UI) and inconsistencies in data.
• Severe Debugging Issues: If the side effects of force rerendering are not enough to keep you awake at night, then the debugging issues arising from this feature’s overuse will definitely give you nightmares. For example, when trying to fix a problem with a React SPA, the last thing you’d want to do is deal with the extra complexity arising from constantly force-rendering components.
• Disrupting Optimization of the Rendering Process: React optimizes the rendering process cleverly. It updates only what is necessary to avoid unnecessary work. But, this optimization gets disrupted when you force a rerender.

What You Need to Consider Before Performing React Force Rerender

Your React project will suffer if you force rerender impulsively. Two consequences of this lack of restraint are an increase in the resources utilized and reduced performance. But that is not all. React may fail completely if your overuse of force rerender disrupts how it operates on a fundamental level.

You may choose another framework as an easy way out, such as using Vue vs. React, but that should not be your first option. Instead, you should hire React JS developers with the knowledge and experience to use React Force Rerender at the right time and sparingly. Reputable React JS development services will use React Force Rerenders based on the guidelines and coding standards they have established.

There may be occasions when developers restrict the use of force rerenders completely, and at times, these rerenders may be allowed only for specific use-case scenarios. The ideal situation would involve React JS developers using a force rerender only when there is an underlying issue in the codebase that they need to solve.

Suppose it is impossible to avoid a force rerender completely. In that case, the developers working on the React application should use the most appropriate technique for force rerendering the component they want to update.

Conclusion

Use force rerender like a magic wand when you face issues with the codebase in your React application or when you want to take control of a library to rerender a component at will. However, using React Force Rerender impulsively or at will can cause more problems than it can solve.

So, your best bet is to use force rerender sparingly or only when necessary. When you rerender the components in React only when they are truly needed, you’re helping your React website or application improve, and it will thank you for it.