InfernoJS v6.0.0

Breaking changes

hydrate moved to inferno-hydrate package
Style properties use hyphen syntax backgroundColor => background-color
JSX plugin depends on babel v7
Lifecycle changed to have better compatibility with ReactJS
String refs completely removed

New features

Fragments, a new type of VNode that can be used to render Component root level arrays
createRef API
forwardRef API
new Component lifecycle: getDerivedStateFromProps and getSnapshotBeforeUpdate
$HasTextChildren new JSX compilation time optimization flag added
rerender method
top level context

Fragments

Fragment support means you can return array from Component render creating an invisible layer that ties its content together
but will not render any container to actual DOM. The examples below need v6 babel-plugin-inferno

Short syntax example <> ... </>

import { Component } from 'inferno';

class MyApplication extends Component {

    render() {

        /*
         * This will render "<span>Hi</span><div>Okay</div>"
         * to location where MyApplication is used
         * /
        return (
            <>
                <span>Hi</span>
                <div>Okay</div>
            </>
        )
    }
}

Long syntax allows you to specify keys for Fragments. This is useful if there are many Fragments or if array is built dynamically.

import { Component, Fragment } from 'inferno';

class MyApplication extends Component {

    render() {

        const list = [];


        if (/* some logic */) {
            list.push(
                <Fragment key="coffee">
                    <dt>Coffee</dt>
                    <dd>Black hot drink</dd>
                </Fragment/>
            );
        }

        ...

        if (/* other logic */) {
            list.push(
                <Fragment key="milk">
                    <dt>Milk</dt>
                    <dd>White cold drink</dd>
                </Fragment/>
            );
        }

        /*
         * This will render
         * <dl>
         *    <dt>Coffee</dt>
         *    <dd>Black hot drink</dd>
         *    <dt>Milk</dt>
         *    <dd>White cold drink</dd>
         * </dl>
         * /
        return (
            <dl>
                {list}
            </dl>
        )
    }
}

You can create fragment:

Using native Inferno API createFragment(children: any, childFlags: ChildFlags, key?: string | number | null)
Using JSX <> ... </>, <Fragment> .... </Fragment> or <Inferno.Fragment> ... </Inferno.Fragment>
Using createElement API createElement(Inferno.Fragment, {key: 'test'}, ...children)
Using hyperscript API h(Inferno.Fragment, {key: 'test'}, children)

React documentation: https://reactjs.org/docs/fragments.html

CreateRef API

createRef method allows nicer syntax, and reduces code when no callback to DOM creation is needed.
The below example creates ref object and stores it to Component property element.
This object is then assigned to the element where you want to create reference. In the example below we want to reference "span".
After render has gone, span element is available in this.element.current property.

import { Component, render, createRef } from 'inferno';

class Foobar extends Component {
  constructor(props) {
    super(props);

    // Store reference somewhere
    this.element = createRef(); // Returns object {current: null}
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <div>
        <span id="span" ref={this.element}>
          Ok
        </span>
      </div>
    );
  }
}

render(<Foobar />, container);

React documentation: https://reactjs.org/docs/refs-and-the-dom.html

ForwardRef API

forwardRef is a new mechanism to "forward" ref inside a functional Component.
It can be useful if you have simple functional Components and you want to create reference to a specific element inside it.

import { forwardRef, Component, render } from 'inferno';

const FancyButton = forwardRef((props, ref) => (
  <button ref={ref} className="FancyButton">
    {props.children}
  </button>
));

class Hello extends Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <FancyButton
        ref={btn => {
          if (btn) {
            // btn variable is the button rendered from FancyButton
          }
        }}
      >
        Click me!
      </FancyButton>
    );
  }
}

render(<Hello />, container);

React documentation: https://reactjs.org/docs/forwarding-refs.html

New lifecycle

Like in React when new lifecycle methods getDerivedStateFromProps or getSnapshotBeforeUpdate are used old lifecycle methods will not be called ( componentWillMount, componentWillReceiveProps componentWillUpdate ).
There will not be UNSAFE_ methods in Inferno. Just use the normal names.

TextChildren

New optimization paths have been added for text. JSX users can force this optimization by adding $HasTextChildren tag to any vNode element.
This makes given element always render text. Normalization will also default into text children when only single text element is detected as children.

This flag also simplifies an old version of:

import { createTextVNode } from 'inferno';

// While this still works, this is not recommended anymore
<div $HasVNodeChildren>{createTextVNode('text')}</div>

New version:

// No imports needed
<div $HasTextChildren>text</div>

rerender

rerender is a new method that will flush all pending setState calls and render immediately.
It can be used when render timing is important, or to simplify tests.

import { Component, rerender, render } from 'inferno';

describe('test example', () => {
    it('Should update immediately', () => {
      class Foo extends Component {
        constructor(props, context) {
          super(props, context);

          this.state = {
            value: 'initial'
          };
        }

        componentDidMount() {
          this.setState({ value: 'updated' });
        }

        render() {
          return <div className={this.state.value} />;
        }
      }

      const container = document.createElement('div');

      render(<Foo />, container);
      expect(container.firstChild.className).toEqual('initial');

      // Call rerender to flush pending setState, no timeouts needed
      rerender();
      expect(container.firstChild.className).toEqual('updated');
    });
});

Top level context

Inferno.render now takes fourth parameter which is initial context.
This removes the need of wrapping application with Class component.

import { render } from 'inferno';

function App (props, context) {
    // context contains property "foo" => "bar"

    return <div>Cool App!</div>;
}


render(<App />, document.getElementById('root'), callback, { foo: 'bar' });

Common

Runtime memory usage has been improved. dom properties are no longer stored to component vNode.
Various properties have been removed from ES6 Component as well. parentVNode hack has been removed removing circular
references from vNode tree. Normalization array['$'] = true hack has been removed.

Core

Better recovery from user land errors
Fixes performance issue where normalization copied input data two times
Fixes performance issue where frozen input data was always copied

Typescript

Adds support for pointer event types
setState typings have been improved. #1388

Inferno-router

Improved nested routes handling #1360
Route component can now have multiple children

Inferno-compat

options.reactStyles option added, setting it false removes runtime transformation of style properties

List of Github issues can be found using this link: https://github.com/infernojs/inferno/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=label%3A%22Fixed+in+v6.0.0%22+

infernojs/inferno v6.0.0 Inferno v6.0.0 on GitHub