What's the difference between useCallback and useMemo in practice? Ask Question

TL;DR;

• useMemo is to memoize a calculation result between a function's calls and between renders
• useCallback is to memoize a callback itself (referential equality) between renders
• useRef is to keep data between renders (updating does not fire re-rendering)
• useState is to keep data between renders (updating will fire re-rendering)

Long version:

useMemo focuses on avoiding heavy calculation.

useCallback focuses on a different thing: it fixes performance issues when inline event handlers like onClick={() => { doSomething(...); } cause PureComponent child re-rendering (because function expressions there are referentially different each time)

This said, useCallback is closer to useRef, rather than a way to memoize a calculation result.

Looking into the docs I do agree it looks confusing there.

useCallback will return a memoized version of the callback that only changes if one of the inputs has changed. This is useful when passing callbacks to optimized child components that rely on reference equality to prevent unnecessary renders (e.g. shouldComponentUpdate).

Example

Suppose we have a PureComponent-based child <Pure /> that would re-render only once its props are changed.

This code re-renders the child each time the parent is re-rendered — because the inline function is referentially different each time:

function Parent({ ... }) {
  const [a, setA] = useState(0);
  ... 
  return (
    ...
    <Pure onChange={() => { doSomething(a); }} />
  );
}

function Parent({ ... }) {
  const [a, setA] = useState(0);
  const onPureChange = useCallback(() => {doSomething(a);}, []);
  ... 
  return (
    ...
    <Pure onChange={onPureChange} />
  );
}

const [a, setA] = useState(0);
const onPureChange = useCallback(() => {doSomething(a);}, [a]);