React elements are different from DOM elements as React elements are
simple javascript objects and are efficient to create. React elements
are the building blocks of any React app and should not be confused with
React components which will be discussed in further articles.
Now, you have created your first ever React Element and also have rendered it in place, but React was not developed to create static pages, the intention of using React is to create a more logical and active webpage. In order to do so, we will need to update the elements. This next section will guide us through the same.
In the above example, we have created a function showTime() that displays the current time and we have set an interval of 1000ms or 1 sec that recalls the function each second thus updating the time in each call. For simplicity, we have only shown the timespan of one second in the given image.
Rendering an Element in React
In order to render any element into the Browser DOM, we need to have a
container or root DOM element. It is almost a convention to have a div
element with the id=”root” or id=”app” to be used as the root DOM
element. Let’s suppose our index.html file has the following statement
inside it.<div id="root"></div>Now, in order to render a simple React Element to the root node, we must write the following in the index.js file.
import React from 'react'; import ReactDOM from 'react-dom'; const myElement = <h1>Welcome to GeeksforGeeks ! < /h1>; ReactDOM.render(myElement, document.getElementById("root")); |
Now, you have created your first ever React Element and also have rendered it in place, but React was not developed to create static pages, the intention of using React is to create a more logical and active webpage. In order to do so, we will need to update the elements. This next section will guide us through the same.
Updating an Element in React
React Elements are immutable i.e. once an element is created it is
impossible to update its children or attribute. Thus, in order to update
an element, we must use the render() method several times to update the
value over time. Let’s see this in an example.
import React from 'react'; import ReactDOM from 'react-dom'; function showTime() { const myElement = ( <div> <h1>Welcome to GeeksforGeeks!</h1> <h2>{new Date().toLocaleTimeString()}</h2> </div> ); ReactDOM.render( myElement, document.getElementById("root") ); } setInterval(showTime, 1000); |
In the above example, we have created a function showTime() that displays the current time and we have set an interval of 1000ms or 1 sec that recalls the function each second thus updating the time in each call. For simplicity, we have only shown the timespan of one second in the given image.
Is React Render Efficient?
React is chosen over the legacy of DOM update because of its
increased efficiency. React achieves this efficiency by using the
virtual DOM and efficient differentiating algorithm. In the example of
displaying the current time, at each second we call the render method
and the virtual DOM gets updated and then the differentiator checks for
the particular differences in Browser DOM and the Virtual DOM and then
updates only what is required such as in the given example the time is
the only thing that is getting changed each time not the title “Welcome
to GeeksforGeeks!” thus React only updates the time itself making it
much more efficient than conventional DOM manipulation.
Important Points to Note:
- Calling the render() method multiple times may serve our purpose for this example, but in general it is never used, instead a stateful component is used which we will cover in further articles.
- A React Element is almost never used isolately, we can use elements as the building blocks of creating a component in React. Components will also be discussed in upcoming articles.
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