How is the virtual DOM created in React?

1 year ago
Emily Johnson
2 minutes

In React, creating a virtual DOM can be achieved by calling the React.createElement function, which takes three parameters: the tag name, an object of attributes, and children elements.

For example, to create a virtual DOM element containing text content, you can use the following code:

const element = React.createElement('div', null, 'Hello, React!');

This will create a div element with the text content “Hello, React!”.

You can also create virtual DOM elements with properties and child elements by passing an attributes object and children. For example:

const element = React.createElement('div', { className: 'container' }, 
    React.createElement('h1', null, 'Hello, React!'),
    React.createElement('p', null, 'This is a paragraph.')
);

This will create a div element with the className attribute and two child elements.

In actual development, we often use JSX syntax to create virtual DOM, which can more intuitively represent the structure and properties of components. The above example can be simplified using JSX syntax as follows:

const element = (
    <div className="container">
        <h1>Hello, React!</h1>
        <p>This is a paragraph.</p>
    </div>
);

This will create a virtual DOM element similar to the example above.

It is important to note that although the React.createElement function can directly create virtual DOM elements, in actual development, we typically use JSX syntax because it is more readable and easier to write. Compilation tools (such as Babel) will convert JSX code into React.createElement function calls.

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