React Hooks: Why is .current null for useRef Hook?

Question

I have a simple example of a component:

function App() {
  const observed = useRef(null);
  console.log(observed.current);

  return (
    


        
      

Answer 1

This is what I ended up doing since calling useEffect on rlvRef did not capture all events.

const rlvRef = useRef()
const [refVisible, setRefVisible] = useState(false)

useEffect(() => {
  if (!refVisible) { 
    return
  }
  // detected rendering
}, refVisible)

return (
 { rlvRef.current = el; setRefVisible(!!el); }}
... />
)