Forms: How to get the value of an input element in React

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A common scenario involves having a form, and you want to get the value of one of the form fields, for example when the user clicks a button.

How can you do so?

Using hooks, you can create a variable for each input field, and listening on the onChange event you call the “set” function for that variable.

Here’s an example:

const [title, setTitle] = useState('')

And on the input field in JSX:

<input onChange={event => setTitle(event.target.value)} />

In this way, when you are in the event handler for the submit event of the form, or anywhere you want, you can get the value of the field from the title value.

Lessons in this unit:

0: Introduction
1: Managing forms in React
2: Form Actions
3: React, how to make a checked checkbox editable
4: How I fixed an issue with a React login form state and Browser autofill
5: ▶︎ How to get the value of an input element in React