Why Did You Render
why-did-you-render
by Welldone Software monkey patches React
to notify you about potentially avoidable re-renders. (Works with React Native
as well.)
For example, if you pass style={{width: '100%'}}
to a big pure component it would always re-render on every element creation:
<BigListPureComponent style={{width: '100%'}}/>
It can also help you to simply track when and why a certain component re-renders.
Setup
The latest version of the library was tested (unit tests and E2E) with React@18
only. For React 17 and 16, please use version @^7.
npm install @welldone-software/why-did-you-render --save-dev
or
yarn add --dev @welldone-software/why-did-you-render
If you use the automatic
JSX transformation, set the library to be the import source, and make sure preset-react
is in development
mode.
['@babel/preset-react', {
runtime: 'automatic',
development: process.env.NODE_ENV === 'development',
importSource: '@welldone-software/why-did-you-render',
}]
Unfortunately, the metro-react-native-babel-preset
that comes with react-native out of the box does not allow you to change the options of the babel/plugin-transform-react-jsx
plugin. Just add the plugin with options as listed below and start react-native packager as usual. Default env for babel is "development". If you do not use expo when working with react-native, the following method will help you.
module.exports = {
presets: ['module:metro-react-native-babel-preset'],
env: {
development: {
plugins: [['@babel/plugin-transform-react-jsx', { runtime: 'classic' }]],
},
},
}
Notice: Create React App (CRA) ^4 does use the
automatic
JSX transformation. See the following comment on how to do this step with CRA
Create a wdyr.js
file and import it as the first import in your application.
wdyr.js
:
import React from 'react';
if (process.env.NODE_ENV === 'development') {
const whyDidYouRender = require('@welldone-software/why-did-you-render');
whyDidYouRender(React, {
trackAllPureComponents: true,
});
}
Notice: The library should NEVER be used in production because it slows down React
In Typescript, call the file wdyr.ts and add the following line to the top of the file to import the package's types:
/// <reference types="@welldone-software/why-did-you-render" />
Import wdyr
as the first import (even before react-hot-loader
):
index.js
:
import './wdyr'; // <--- first import
import 'react-hot-loader';
import {hot} from 'react-hot-loader/root';
import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
// ...
import {App} from './app';
// ...
const HotApp = hot(App);
// ...
ReactDOM.render(<HotApp/>, document.getElementById('root'));
If you use trackAllPureComponents
like we suggest, all pure components (React.PureComponent or React.memo) will be tracked.
Otherwise, add whyDidYouRender = true
to component classes/functions you want to track. (f.e Component.whyDidYouRender = true
)
More information about what is tracked can be found in Tracking Components.
Can't see any WDYR logs? Check out the troubleshooting section or search in the issues.
Custom Hooks
Also, tracking custom hooks is possible by using trackExtraHooks
. For example if you want to track useSelector
from React Redux:
wdyr.js
:
import React from 'react';
if (process.env.NODE_ENV === 'development') {
const whyDidYouRender = require('@welldone-software/why-did-you-render');
const ReactRedux = require('react-redux');
whyDidYouRender(React, {
trackAllPureComponents: true,
trackExtraHooks: [
[ReactRedux, 'useSelector']
]
});
}
Notice that there's currently a problem with rewriting exports of imported files in
webpack
. A quick workaround can help with it: #85 - trackExtraHooks cannot set property.
Read More
- Why Did You Render Mr. Big Pure React Component???
- Common fixing scenarios this library can help with
- React Hooks - Understand and fix hooks issues
- Why Did You Render v4 Released! - TypeScript support, Custom hooks tracking (like React-Redux’s useSelector), Tracking of all pure components.
Integration With Other Libraries
- Next.js example
- React-Redux With Hooks
- Mobx is currently not supported
- React-Native flipper plugin made by @allen-hsu
Sandbox
You can test the library in the official sandbox.
And another official sandbox with hooks tracking
Tracking Components
You can track all pure components (React.PureComponent or React.memo) using the trackAllPureComponents: true
option.
You can also manually track any component you want by setting whyDidYouRender
on them like this:
class BigList extends React.Component {
static whyDidYouRender = true
render(){
return (
//some heavy render you want to ensure doesn't happen if its not necessary
)
}
}
Or for functional components:
const BigListPureComponent = props => (
<div>
//some heavy component you want to ensure doesn't happen if its not necessary
</div>
)
BigListPureComponent.whyDidYouRender = true
You can also pass an object to specify more advanced tracking settings:
EnhancedMenu.whyDidYouRender = {
logOnDifferentValues: true,
customName: 'Menu'
}
-
logOnDifferentValues
:Normally, only re-renders that are caused by equal values in props / state trigger notifications:
render(<Menu a={1}/>) render(<Menu a={1}/>)
This option will trigger notifications even if they occurred because of different props / state (Thus, because of "legit" re-renders):
render(<Menu a={1}/>) render(<Menu a={2}/>)
-
customName
:Sometimes the name of the component can be missing or very inconvenient. For example:
withPropsOnChange(withPropsOnChange(withStateHandlers(withPropsOnChange(withState(withPropsOnChange(lifecycle(withPropsOnChange(withPropsOnChange(onlyUpdateForKeys(LoadNamespace(Connect(withState(withState(withPropsOnChange(lifecycle(withPropsOnChange(withHandlers(withHandlers(withHandlers(withHandlers(Connect(lifecycle(Menu)))))))))))))))))))))))
Options
Optionally you can pass in options
as the second parameter. The following options are available:
include: [RegExp, ...]
(null
by default)exclude: [RegExp, ...]
(null
by default)trackAllPureComponents: false
trackHooks: true
trackExtraHooks: []
logOwnerReasons: true
logOnDifferentValues: false
hotReloadBufferMs: 500
onlyLogs: false
collapseGroups: false
titleColor
diffNameColor
diffPathColor
notifier: ({Component, displayName, hookName, prevProps, prevState, prevHook, nextProps, nextState, nextHook, reason, options, ownerDataMap}) => void
getAdditionalOwnerData: (element) => {...}
include / exclude
(default: null
)
You can include or exclude tracking of components by their displayName using the include
and exclude
options.
For example, the following code is used to track all redundant re-renders that are caused by older React-Redux:
whyDidYouRender(React, { include: [/^ConnectFunction/] });
Notice: exclude takes priority over both
include
and manually setwhyDidYouRender =
trackAllPureComponents
(default: false
)
You can track all pure components (both React.memo
and React.PureComponent
components)
Notice: You can exclude the tracking of any specific component with
whyDidYouRender = false
trackHooks
(default: true
)
You can turn off tracking of hooks changes.
Understand and fix hook issues.
trackExtraHooks
(default: []
)
Track custom hooks:
whyDidYouRender(React, {
trackExtraHooks: [
// notice that 'useSelector' is a named export
[ReactRedux, 'useSelector'],
]
});
There is currently a problem with rewriting exports of imported files in webpack. A workaround is available here: #85 - trackExtraHooks cannot set property
logOwnerReasons
(default: true
)
One way of fixing re-render issues is preventing the component's owner from re-rendering.
This option is true
by default and it lets you view the reasons why an owner component re-renders.
logOnDifferentValues
(default: false
)
Normally, you only want logs about component re-renders when they could have been avoided.
With this option, it is possible to track all re-renders.
For example:
render(<BigListPureComponent a={1}/>)
render(<BigListPureComponent a={2}/>)
// will only log if you use {logOnDifferentValues: true}
hotReloadBufferMs
(default: 500
)
Time in milliseconds to ignore updates after a hot reload is detected.
When a hot reload is detected, we ignore all updates for hotReloadBufferMs
to not spam the console.
onlyLogs
(default: false
)
If you don't want to use console.group
to group logs you can print them as simple logs.
collapseGroups
(default: false
)
Grouped logs can be collapsed.
titleColor / diffNameColor / diffPathColor
(default titleColor: '#058'
)
(default diffNameColor: 'blue'
)
(default diffPathColor: 'red'
)
Controls the colors used in the console notifications
notifier
(default: defaultNotifier that is exposed from the library)
You can create a custom notifier if the default one does not suite your needs.
getAdditionalOwnerData
(default: undefined
)
You can provide a function that harvests additional data from the original react element. The object returned from this function will be added to the ownerDataMap which can be accessed later within your notifier function override.
Troubleshooting
No tracking
- If you are in production, WDYR is probably disabled.
- Maybe no component is tracked
- Check out Tracking Components once again.
- If you only track pure components using
trackAllPureComponents: true
then you would only track either (React.PureComponent or React.memo), maybe none of your components are pure so none of them will get tracked. - Maybe you have no issues
-
Try causing an issue by temporary rendering the whole app twice in it's entry point:
index.js
:const HotApp = hot(App); HotApp.whyDidYouRender = true; ReactDOM.render(<HotApp/>, document.getElementById('root')); ReactDOM.render(<HotApp/>, document.getElementById('root'));
-
Custom Hooks tracking (like useSelector)
There's currently a problem with rewriting exports of imported files in webpack
. A quick workaround can help with it: #85 - trackExtraHooks cannot set property.
React-Redux connect
HOC is spamming the console
Since connect
hoists statics, if you add WDYR to the inner component, it is also added to the HOC component where complex hooks are running.
To fix this, add the whyDidYouRender = true
static to a component after the connect:
const SimpleComponent = ({a}) => <div data-testid="foo">{a.b}</div>)
// not before the connect:
// SimpleComponent.whyDidYouRender = true
const ConnectedSimpleComponent = connect(
state => ({a: state.a})
)(SimpleComponent)
// after the connect:
SimpleComponent.whyDidYouRender = true
Sourcemaps
To see the library's sourcemaps use the source-map-loader.
Credit
Inspired by the following previous work:
- github.com/maicki/why-did-you-update (no longer public) which I had the chance to maintain for some time.
- https://github.com/garbles/why-did-you-update where A deep dive into React perf debugging is credited for the idea.
License
This library is MIT licensed.