React uses SyntheticEvents primarily to handle cross-browser compatibility issues and to enhance performance in handling events within applications.
Cross-Browser Compatibility
One of the main reasons React uses SyntheticEvents is to ensure that events behave consistently across different browsers. Different browsers can have varying implementations of the same DOM events, leading to inconsistencies in event properties and behaviors. SyntheticEvents wrap the browser's native events into a consistent API, so developers do not need to write different codes for different browsers. This abstraction simplifies the development process by eliminating browser-specific event handling code[2][3][4][6][8][11][14][17].
Performance Enhancements
React enhances performance through the event delegation model and event pooling. Instead of attaching events directly to the elements, React attaches a single event listener to the root of the document. This approach reduces the memory overhead of having many event listeners and speeds up event handling by reducing the number of listeners in the system. Furthermore, React implements event pooling, where SyntheticEvent objects are reused across different events. This means that the properties of SyntheticEvent instances are reset after each event callback has been invoked, reducing the need for frequent garbage collection and improving performance[2][8][17].
Consistent Event Handling
React's SyntheticEvent system provides a uniform interface for event handling across different components and applications. This consistency is crucial for large-scale applications where maintaining standard practices in event handling can significantly impact maintainability and scalability[2][3][4][6][8][11][14][17].
