👀 Views: 13 💬 Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-08-23

react hooks useRef dynamic-form JavaScript

I need help solving I'm following best practices but This might be a silly question, but I'm experimenting with I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here, but I'm encountering an issue with a dynamic form in a React 18 application where I'm using `useRef` to manage input states instead of `useState`... The form dynamically adds input fields based on user actions, but when I modify the values in these fields, the component does not re-render to reflect the changes. I expected that using `useRef` would still allow for access to the values, but it seems like React is not detecting the updates to trigger a re-render. Here's a simplified version of my code: ```javascript import React, { useRef } from 'react'; const DynamicForm = () => { const inputRefs = useRef([]); const [fields, setFields] = React.useState(['']); const handleAddField = () => { setFields([...fields, '']); }; const handleChange = (index, event) => { inputRefs.current[index] = event.target.value; }; const handleSubmit = (event) => { event.preventDefault(); console.log(inputRefs.current); }; return ( <form onSubmit={handleSubmit}> {fields.map((_, index) => ( <input key={index} type="text" ref={el => inputRefs.current[index] = el} onChange={event => handleChange(index, event)} /> ))} <button type="button" onClick={handleAddField}>Add Field</button> <button type="submit">Submit</button> </form> ); }; export default DynamicForm; ``` I've tried using `console.log()` to verify that the values are being updated in the `inputRefs.current` array, and they are. However, the component does not re-render when I type into the inputs, which means that the UI does not reflect the current values. Is there a better way to handle dynamic forms in React where the state needs to be tracked and the component needs to re-render? Should I be using `useState` for each input instead of `useRef`, or is there an alternative approach I’m missing that facilitates reactivity without losing performance? Any insights would be greatly appreciated! Has anyone else encountered this? I'm open to any suggestions. Has anyone else encountered this? My team is using Javascript for this service. Any feedback is welcome! I'm using Javascript LTS in this project. Has anyone else encountered this?