What does calling super() in a React constructor do?

Question

Learning React from the docs and came across this example:

class Square extends React.Component {
  constructor() {
    super();
    this.state = {
      val         


        

Answer 1

Worth adding that super() is short for superclass contructor, a concept from inheritance.

By default the class Square inherits the constructor from its superclass React.Component.

The inherited constructor can be overridden by declaring a new constructor() method.

If the intention is to extend rather than override the superclass constructor then it must be explicitly invoked using super().