react-use-timeout

React hooks that wrapper standard JS setTimeout and setInterval.

Why would I use this?

Helps prevent memory leaks.

Normally you would have to remember to clear your unfinished timeouts before a component is detached. For example to manage a simple timeout:

import React, {useEffect, useRef} from 'react';

export default function Example() {
  // save off the id of the timeout so we can cancel it later.
  const timeout = useRef();

  useEffect(() => {
    // start timeout
    timeout.current = setTimeout(doSomething, 30000);

    // cleanup function to cancel the timeout if it hasn't finished.
    return () => {
      if (timeout.current) {
        clearTimeout(timeout.current);
      }
    };
  }, []);

  return <div />
}

If you forget to return a cleanup function from the useEffect that clears the timeout, then it could cause a memory leak (depending on what variables are held in the closure) or cause a react warning if the callback changes state on the component but the component is unmounted befire the timeout fires.

Less code

Instead of the above example of using a setTimeout, this is the same code with the hook:

import React, {useEffect} from 'react';
import {useTimeout} from 'react-use-timeout';

export default function Example() {
  const timeout = useTimeout(doSomething, 30000);

  useEffect(() => {
    timeout.start();
  }, []);

  return <div />
}

Mockable for testing

It is easier to mock these hooks then to mock setTimeout.

Examples in Jest:

// Mock the useTimeout hook to execute all timeouts at 0ms
jest.mock('react-use-timeout', () => {
  return {
    useTimeout: jest.fn(callback => setTimeout(callback, 0)),
  };
});

// Mock the hooks to never execute timeouts
jest.mock('react-use-timeout', () => {
  return {
    useTimeout: () => {},
    useInterval: () => {},
  };
});

How to Use

You can install this library using

npm add react-use-timeout

or

yarn add react-use-timeout

Then you can import it into your component

import {useTimeout, useInterval} from 'react-use-timeout';

useTimeout

Call the hook to get an instance of a timeout. You pass a callback to execute, and optionally a timeout to execute it at (the default is 0ms). Note that the timeout does not start yet. You need to call .start() on the returned object.

The returned timeout instance provides 2 functions:

• .start(timeout) : Start the timeout. Optionally you can pass a new timeout duration. If passed, this will override the duration passed to useTimeout()
• .stop() : Cancels the timeout.

import React, {useEffect, useCallback, useState} from 'react';
import {useTimeout} from 'react-use-timeout';

// This component would change it's text color from green to red 10 seconds after it was mounted.
export default function Example() {
  const [color, setColor] = useState('green');

  const changeColor = useCallback(() => {
    setColor('red');
  });

  const timeout = useTimeout(changeColor, 10000);

  useEffect(() => {
    timeout.start();
  }, []);

  return <div style={{color}} />
}

useInterval

Call the hook to get an instance of an interval. You pass a callback to execute, and optionally a interval to execute it at. Note that the interval does not start yet. You need to call .start() on the returned object.

The returned interval instance provides 2 functions:

• .start(timeout) : Start the intrval. Optionally you can pass a new timeout duration. If passed, this will override the duration passed to useInterval()
• .stop() : Cancels the interval.

import React, {useEffect, useCallback, useState} from 'react';
import {useInterval} from 'react-use-timeout';

// This component would alternate it's color between green and red each 1 second after it was mounted.
export default function Example() {
  const [color, setColor] = useState('green');

  const toggleColor = useCallback(() => {
    setColor(color === 'green' ? 'red', 'green');
  });

  const interval = useInterval(toggleColor, 1000);

  useEffect(() => {
    interval.start();
  }, []);

  return <div style={{color}} />
}