New root API in React 18

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New root API in React 18

React 18 introduces a new root API which provides better ergonomics for managing roots. The new root API also enables the new concurrent renderer, which allows you to opt-into concurrent features.

ReactDOM.createRoot

Let's take a look at how things are before using root API.
If you look at your index.js. we render our App component into the root element on the page.

import { StrictMode } from "react";
import { createRoot } from "react-dom/client";

import App from "./App";

const rootElement = document.getElementById("root");
const root = createRoot(rootElement);

root.render(
  <StrictMode><App /></StrictMode>
);

This API (now call "legacy root API) has some issues when running updates. We will have to pass the **rootElement **into the render every time, even if it does not change.

To fix this issue and bring some other improvements, React 18 introduced a new root API.

React 18 Root API

With this new API we don't have to pass the **rootElement **into the render.

import React from "react";
import ReactDOM from "react-dom/client";
import "./index.css";
import App from "./App";

const root = ReactDOM.createRoot(document.getElementById("root"));
root.render(
  <React.StrictMode>
    <App />
  </React.StrictMode>
);

Callback and Hydrate functions

This new root API removed the callback from render, since it usually does not have the expected result when using Suspense:

// Before
const container = document.getElementById('app');
render(<App tab="home" />, container, () => {
  console.log('rendered');
});

// After
function AppWithCallbackAfterRender() {
  useEffect(() => {
    console.log('rendered');
  });

  return <App tab="home" />
}

const container = document.getElementById('app');
const root = createRoot(container);
root.render(<AppWithCallbackAfterRender />);

Finally, if your app uses server-side rendering with hydration, upgrade hydrate to hydrateRoot:

// Before
import { hydrate } from 'react-dom';
const container = document.getElementById('app');
hydrate(<App tab="home" />, container);

// After
import { hydrateRoot } from 'react-dom/client';
const container = document.getElementById('app');
const root = hydrateRoot(container, <App tab="home" />);
// Unlike with createRoot, you don't need a separate root.render() call here.

When you first install React 18, you will see a warning in the console:

ReactDOM.render is no longer supported in React 18. Use createRoot instead. Until you switch to the new API, your app will behave as if it’s running React 17. Learn more: https://reactjs.org/link/switch-to-createroot

Source: reactjs.org

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New root API in React 18