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47. What is Virtual DOM? How does it work?

Virtual DOM is an in-memory representation of the real DOM. It was invented to solve the problem of updating the real DOM efficiently. In traditional web development, when any change occurs, the entire DOM tree is regenerated, which is slow and can cause performance issues. With virtual DOM, the framework creates a copy of the real DOM and keeps track of any changes by comparing the changes in the new copy with the old one. It only updates the parts of the DOM that have changed instead of regenerating the entire tree, which makes it much faster.

The benefits of using the virtual DOM include:

  1. Performance: It makes rendering of web applications faster by optimizing the updates of the DOM.

  2. Platform-independent: It allows us to create web applications that work seamlessly across different platforms and devices.

  3. Increased functionality: It enables creation of complex web applications that can handle multiple events effectively.

The cons of virtual DOM are that it introduces additional complexity to the codebase and requires a larger file size. Additionally, it is not always necessary to use virtual DOM for smaller applications.

Overall, virtual DOM provides a more optimized and efficient way of updating the DOM, which improves web application performance and enhances user experience.