Here’s how to force a re-render on a function-style React component. Spoiler alert: it’s very simple.

Why would you want to force a re-render?

For example, when you need to fetch fresh data and re-render a graph for example. Below is some imaginary random data, you can click the refresh button to regenerate it:

How to re-render?

It’s really simple: when you update the component’s state, it will re-render.

React also has a helper method for that:

this.forceUpdate()

Unfortunately that only works on Class components.

Force a re-render in a function component

For function components, we can make a state specifically for this, lets call it refresh. The value is 0, and then we increment it when we want a refresh:

const Graph = () => {
  const [refresh, setRefresh] = React.useState(0)
 
  return (
    <Box>
      <Wrap>
        {getData().map(amount => (
          <Item height={amount} key={amount} />
        ))}
      </Wrap>
      <button onClick={() => setRefresh(refresh + 1)}>Refresh data</button>
    </Box>
  )
}

Make sure you call data from inside the component, I’m running the getData function, which gives me a fresh set of random numbers.

A refresh React hook

If you use it a lot, you could make a re-render hook:

const useRefresh = () => {
  const [refresh, setRefresh] = React.useState(0)
 
  return () => setRefresh(refresh + 1)
}

Conclusions

So, the only way to re-render is to update the state 💁‍♂️ I guess the forceUpdate() helper does the state update under the hood.

That’s about it. Hope this was helpful.