Custom hook and access to WidgetRef

[dastein1]

Say that I have a custom hook in which I want to interact with riveropd providers amongst other things.
Can I just pass in the WidgetRef as a param to the hook then?

useMyCustomHook(WidgetRef ref) {
  final data = ref.watch(someProvider);

  useEffect(() {
    // do something on data change and maybe call some other provider
    // ref.read(someOtherProvider.notifier).callSomeAction();
  }, [data, ref]);

  // do more stuff 
}

This satisfies all rules for hooks and seem to work just fine in my testing.
But I'm interested if this is actually considered an anti-pattern that should be avoided.

[davidmartos96]

Passing the ref is the recommended solution, there is nothing wrong with it.

[davidmartos96]

I don't think it's needed as a dependency in the useEffect, but I might be wrong

[dastein1]

@davidmartos96 Thanks. In my real world example I'm accessing data in the effect and so need it as a dependency to rerun as it changes. Not sure if it is safe to omit ref. Thoughts?

[davidmartos96]

When would you like your useEffect to be called again?

[rrousselGit]

Not having ref as dependency should be fine.

[rrousselGit]

But you probably shouldn't use ref inside effects

Try using ref outside of the effect. Then the values you obtained should be passed as dependency to the effect

[dastein1]

@rrousselGit Thanks. In that example I am watching 1 provider outside and passing that data into the effect. In that effect however I need to call a statenotifier's method and therefore used ref.read(). That should be legit, isn't it?