Create Vue 3 Apps with the Composition API — Refs

It lets us extract logic easily an not have to worry about the value of this in our code.

It also works better with TypeScript because the value of this no longer has to be typed.

In this article, we’ll look at how to create Vue 3 apps with the Composition API.

Using Refs with v-for

We can assign refs to items rendered with v-for .

For instance, we can write:

<template>
  <div
    v-for="(item, i) in list"
    :ref="
      (el) => {
        divs[i] = el;
      }
    "
    :key="i"
  >
    {{ item }}
  </div>
</template>

<script>
import { ref, reactive, onBeforeUpdate } from "vue";

export default {
  setup() {
    const list = reactive([1, 2, 3]);
    const divs = ref([]);

    onBeforeUpdate(() => {
      divs.value = [];
    });

    return {
      list,
      divs,
    };
  },
};
</script>

We create the divs reactive property with the ref function.

Then when we render the items with v-for , we assign the el HTML element object as an entry of the divs array.

Reactivity Utilities

The Vue 3 composition API comes with some utility functions to do various things with reactive properties.

unref

The unref function lets us return the ref’s value or the argument we pass into the ref function depending on if the variable is a ref.

For instance, we can write:

<template>
  <div>
    <button @click="increment">increment</button>
    {{ count }}
  </div>
</template>

<script>
import { ref, unref, watch } from "vue";
export default {
  name: "App",
  setup() {
    const count = ref(0);
    const increment = () => {
      count.value++;
    };
    watch(count, () => {
      console.log(unref(count));
    });

    return {
      count,
      increment,
    };
  },
};
</script>

We create the count reactive property.

And in the watch callback, we call unref(count) to get the actual value of the count reactive property.

If it’s not a ref, it returns the value of the variable we pass in.

toRef

The toRef function lets us create a ref for a property on a reactive source object.

For instance, we can write:

<template>
  <div>
    <button @click="increment">increment</button>
    {{ count }}
    {{ state.count }}
  </div>
</template>

<script>
import { reactive, toRef } from "vue";
export default {
  name: "App",
  setup() {
    const state = reactive({
      count: 1,
    });

    const count = toRef(state, "count");
    const increment = () => {
      state.count++;
    };

    return {
      state,
      count,
      increment,
    };
  },
};
</script>

We call toRef to create a ref from the state.count property.

Now we can include it in the object we return and then reference it in the template.

This is useful if we want to pass it into a composition function.

For instance, we can write:

<template>
  <div>
    <button @click="increment">increment</button>
    {{ count }}
    {{ state.count }}
  </div>
</template>

<script>
import { reactive, toRef, watch } from "vue";
export default {
  name: "App",
  setup() {
    const state = reactive({
      count: 1,
    });

    const count = toRef(state, "count");
    const increment = () => {
      state.count++;
    };

    watch(count, (count) => console.log(count));

    return {
      state,
      count,
      increment,
    };
  },
};
</script>

We pass the count into watch so we can watch its value.

Conclusion

We can assign refs to HTML elements to let us access them in our component.

And we can manipulate refs with various functions that comes with Vue 3’s composition API.