---
title: "Three different ways to use Context"
url: "https://www.bekk.christmas/post/2018/15/three-different-ways-to-use-context"
authors: ["Emil Døhlen Hansen", "Svein Petter Gjøby"]
published: "2018-12-15"
updated: "2024-11-07T13:05:28Z"
language: "en-US"
type: "article"
tags: ["React"]
---

# Three different ways to use Context

Prop drilling can be a good thing, and it can be a bad thing. Thankfully, there are better ways to do it with the Context API.

## In short

React Context lets components share values like translations, themes, or authenticated user data without passing props through many layers. It covers three ways to consume context: Provider/Consumer, class components with contextType, and a higher-order component wrapper.

- **For:** React developers dealing with shared values across components
- **Good to know beforehand:** Basic knowledge of React components and props

_AI-generated_

In React, data is passed from parent to child with the help of props. This works fine most of the time. However, it can be cumbersome in certain situations where props are required by many components within an application. Svein Petter spends most of his days working for an international company that supports multiple languages. Various translations are required through the application in many different components.

Context provides a way to easily share values, like translations, between components without explicitly passing props from parent to child. This is useful for values that are considered global such as themes, translations or data about an authenticated user.

In this article, we will show you three different ways to use the context API and display your favourite reindeer.

```js
const Reindeer = ({ name, speed }) => (
  <>
    <p>Name: {name}</p>
    <p>Speed: {speed}</p>
  </>
);
```

## React.createContext

This method is used to create the context. It returns an object that contains a Provider and a Consumer. When React renders a component that consumes this context the value is read from the nearest matching Provider above in the component tree.

```js
const ReindeerContext = React.createContext();
```

It is possible, and often desirable, to have multiple contexts in your React application.

## Context.Provider

Above we mentioned that the object returned from `React.createContext()` contains a Provider. The Provider is the source of truth and allows consuming components to read the context value and subscribe to changes. It accepts a `value` prop that is used to specify the value of the Provider.

When the value of the Provider changes, all the descendant **consuming** components will re-render. Hence, the descendant consumers are updated even when an ancestor decide not to re-render.

```js
const App = () => (
  <ReindeerContext.Provider
    value={{
      name: "Rudolph",
      speed: 42,
    }}
  >
    {/* Some awesome components */}
  </ReindeerContext.Provider>
);
```

## Context.Consumer

The context object also contains a Consumer. The Consumer is a component that lets you subscribe to context changes. As you can see below it requires a function as its child, and the context value can be retrieved by utilizing the [render prop pattern](https://reactjs.org/docs/render-props.html). The context value is given as an argument to this function (the child component) and is equal to the value prop of the nearest matching Provider component.

```js
const ReindeerWithConsumer = () => (
  <ReindeerContext.Consumer>
    {(context) => <Reindeer name={context.name} speed={context.speed} />}
  </ReindeerContext.Consumer>
);
```

## this.context

If you're using a class component and only need values from **a single context**, you can assign the `contextType` class property to your class. This allows you to read the value from `this.context` and you don't need to write `RandomContext.Consumer` in your render method.

```js
class ReindeerWithContextType extends Component {
  contextType = ReindeerContext;
  render() {
    const { name, speed } = this.context;

    return <Reindeer name={name} speed={speed} />;
  }
}
```

## HOCs to the rescue

Let's be honest. Repeatedly writing `<RandomContext.Consumer>`and using the [render props pattern](https://reactjs.org/docs/render-props.html) isn't much better than passing props around your application. To avoid this you can create a higher order component (HOC) that assigns the desired values from the context to your component.

```js
import React from "react";
import { ReindeerContext } from "../contexts/reindeer-context";

const withReindeer = (Component) => (props) => (
  <ReindeerContext.Consumer>
    {(context) => (
      <Component {...props} name={context.name} speed={context.speed} />
    )}
  </ReindeerContext.Consumer>
);

export default withReindeer;
```

Awesome! Now we can enhance our component with `withReindeer`, and `name` and `speed` will be available as props.

```js
const ReindeerWithContext = withReindeer(Reindeer);
```

To play around with a working example of the snippets in this article, smash the button below.

![Edit 9jj506wmzo](https://codesandbox.io/static/img/play-codesandbox.svg)

_Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer._ 🎵 🎅

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