A deep dive into React Native FlatList
Blog post from LogRocket
The React Native FlatList component is a versatile tool for rendering lists in a scrollable format, optimizing performance by using virtualization to load only visible items and reducing memory usage. FlatList offers several advantages over ScrollView, such as infinite scrolling, navigation methods, and customization options through props like renderItem, keyExtractor, and data. It supports features like pull-to-refresh, list headers and footers, separators, and handling empty lists, making it suitable for dynamic and large datasets. Best practices include avoiding anonymous functions and keeping components lightweight to conserve resources and enhance user experience. Common issues, such as images not rendering or lists not updating on data change, can be mitigated with proper use of props like extraData and maxToRenderPerBatch. FlatList is essential for React Native developers to efficiently manage and display data in a user-friendly manner.