Hooks replace class-based components by easying the reuse of state and side effects management. Additionally you can extract repeated logic into a custom hook to reuse across the application.

Hooks heavily rely on JavaScript closures. But closures are sometimes tricky.

One issue you can encouter when working with a React component having a multitude of effects and state management is the stale closure. And it might be difficult to solve!

Let’s start with distilling what the stale closure is. Then let’s how a stale closure affects React hooks, and how you could solve that.

I assume you’re familiar with JavaScript closures. If you need a refresh on closures, take a look at A Simple Explanation of JavaScript Closures.

1. The stale closure

A factory function createIncrement(i) returns an increment function. The increment function increases an interval value by i , and returns a function that logs the current value :

function createIncrement ( i ) { let value = 0 ; function increment ( ) { value += i ; console . log ( value ) ; const message = ` Current value is ${ value } ` ; return function logValue ( ) { console . log ( message ) ; } ; } return increment ; } const inc = createIncrement ( 1 ) ; const log = inc ( ) ; inc ( ) ; inc ( ) ; log ( ) ;

On the first call of inc() , the returned closure is assigned to the variable log . The 3 invocations of inc() increment value up to 3 .

Finally, the call of log() logs the message "Current value is 1" . This is unexpected because value equals to 3 .

log() is a stale closure. On first invocation of inc() , the closure log() has captured message variable having "Current value is 1" . While now, when value is already 3 , message variable is outdated.

The stale closure captures variables that have outdated values.

Let’s see some approaches on how to fix the stale closure.

2. Fixing the stale closure

A. Use a fresh closure

The first approach to solving stale closures is to find the closure that captured the freshest variables.

Let’s find the closure that has captured the most up to date message variable. That’s the closure returned from the latest inc() invocation:

const inc = createIncrement ( 1 ) ; inc ( ) ; inc ( ) ; const latestLog = inc ( ) ; latestLog ( ) ;

latestLog captured the message variable that has the most up to date "Current value is 3" .

By the way, this is approximately how React hooks handle the freshness of closures.

Hooks implementation assumes that between the component re-renderings, the latest closure supplied as a callback to the hook (e.g. useEffect(callback) ) has captured the freshest variables from the component’s function scope.

B. Close over the changed variable

To second way is to make logValue() use value directly.

Let’s move the line const message = ...; into logValue() function body:

function createIncrementFixed ( i ) { let value = 0 ; function increment ( ) { value += i ; console . log ( value ) ; return function logValue ( ) { const message = ` Current value is ${ value } ` ; console . log ( message ) ; } ; } return increment ; } const inc = createIncrementFixed ( 1 ) ; const log = inc ( ) ; inc ( ) ; inc ( ) ; log ( ) ;

logValue() closes over value variable from the scope of createIncrementFixed() . log() now logs the correct message "Current value is 3" .

3. Stale closures of hooks

Let’s study a common case of stale closure when using useEffect() hook.

Inside the component <WatchCount> the hook useEffect() logs every second the value of count :

function WatchCount ( ) { const [ count , setCount ] = useState ( 0 ) ; useEffect ( function ( ) { setInterval ( function log ( ) { console . log ( ` Count is: ${ count } ` ) ; } , 2000 ) ; } , [ ] ) ; return ( < div > { count } < button onClick = { ( ) => setCount ( count + 1 ) } > Increase </ button > </ div > ) ; }

Open the demo and click a few times increase button. Then look at the console, and every 2 seconds apprears Count is: 0 .

Why does it happen?

At first render, the closure log() captures count variable as 0 . Later, even if count increases, log() still uses count as 0 from initial render. log() is a stale closure.

The solution is to let know useEffect() that the closure log() depends on count and properly handle the reset of interval:

function WatchCount ( ) { const [ count , setCount ] = useState ( 0 ) ; useEffect ( function ( ) { const id = setInterval ( function log ( ) { console . log ( ` Count is: ${ count } ` ) ; } , 2000 ) ; return function ( ) { clearInterval ( id ) ; } } , [ count ] ) ; return ( < div > { count } < button onClick = { ( ) => setCount ( count + 1 ) } > Increase </ button > </ div > ) ; }

With the dependencies properly set, useEffect() updates the closure as soon as count changes.

Open the fixed demo and click a few times increase. The console will log the actual value of count .

Proper management of hooks dependencies is an efficient way to solve the stale closure problem.

I recommend to install eslint-plugin-react-hooks, which detects the forgotten dependencies.

There’s another solution how to make log() work correctly. If you see it, let me know in a comment!

The component <DelayedCount> has 2 buttons:

“Increase async” increments the counter in async mode with 1 second delay

“Increase sync” increments the counter right away, in sync mode.

function DelayedCount ( ) { const [ count , setCount ] = useState ( 0 ) ; function handleClickAsync ( ) { setTimeout ( function delay ( ) { setCount ( count + 1 ) ; } , 1000 ) ; } function handleClickSync ( ) { setCount ( count + 1 ) ; } return ( < div > { count } < button onClick = { handleClickAsync } > Increase async </ button > < button onClick = { handleClickSync } > Increase sync </ button > </ div > ) ; }

Now open the demo. Click “Increase async” then right away “Increase sync” buttons. The counter gets updated only to 1 .

It happens because delay() is a stale closure.

Let’s explore what happens:

Initial render. count is 0 . “Increase async” is clicked. delay() closure captures count as 0 . setTimeout() registers delay() to be called after 1 second. “Increase sync” is clicked. The handler handleClickSync() sets count state to 1 using setCount(0 + 1) . The component re-renders. After 1 second. setTimeout() executes the delay() function. But delay() closure still remembers count being 0 from initial render, so sets the state setState(0 + 1) . As result, the count remains 1 .

delay() is a stale closure that uses an outdated count variable captured during the initial render.

To fix the problem, let’s use a functional way to update count state:

function DelayedCount ( ) { const [ count , setCount ] = useState ( 0 ) ; function handleClickAsync ( ) { setTimeout ( function delay ( ) { setCount ( count => count + 1 ) ; } , 1000 ) ; } function handleClickSync ( ) { setCount ( count + 1 ) ; } return ( < div > { count } < button onClick = { handleClickAsync } > Increase async </ button > < button onClick = { handleClickSync } > Increase sync </ button > </ div > ) ; }

Now setCount(count => count + 1) updates the count state inside delay() . React makes sure the latest state value is supplied as an argument to the update state function. The stale closure is solved.

Open the demo. Click “Increase async” then right away “Increase sync” buttons. The counter displays the correct value 2 .

4. Conclusion

The stale closure problem occurs when a closure captures outdated variables. An efficient way to solve stale closures is to correctly set the dependencies of React hooks. Or, in case of stale state, use a functional way to update the state.

The key takeaway is to try to supply hooks with closures that have captured the freshest variables.

Do you think closures make React hooks difficult to understand?