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How does the splice work in Function Component(hooks) in React? [duplicate]

I understand that React tutorials and documentation warn in no uncertain terms that state should not be directly mutated and that everything should go through setState.
I would like to understand why, exactly, I can't just directly change state and then (in the same function) call this.setState({}) just to trigger the render.
E.g.: The below code seems to work just fine:
const React = require('react');
const App = React.createClass({
getInitialState: function() {
return {
some: {
rather: {
deeply: {
embedded: {
stuff: 1,
},
},
},
},
},
};
updateCounter: function () {
this.state.some.rather.deeply.embedded.stuff++;
this.setState({}); // just to trigger the render ...
},
render: function() {
return (
<div>
Counter value: {this.state.some.rather.deeply.embedded.stuff}
<br></br>
<button onClick={this.updateCounter}>Increment</button>
</div>
);
},
});
export default App;
I am all for following conventions but I would like to enhance my further understanding of how ReactJS actually works and what can go wrong or is it sub-optimal with the above code.
The notes under the this.setState documentation basically identify two gotchas:
That if you mutate state directly and then subsequently call this.setState this may replace (overwrite?) the mutation you made. I don't see how this can happen in the above code.
That setState may mutate this.state effectively in an asynchronous / deferred way and so when accessing this.state right after calling this.setState you are not guaranteed to access the final mutated state. I get that, by this is not an issue if this.setState is the last call of the update function.

This answer is to provide enough information to not change/mutate the state directly in React.
React follows Unidirectional Data Flow. Meaning, the data flow inside react should and will be expected to be in a circular path.
React's Data flow without flux
To make React work like this, developers made React similar to functional programming. The rule of thumb of functional programming is immutability. Let me explain it loud and clear.
How does the unidirectional flow works?
states are a data store which contains the data of a component.
The view of a component renders based on the state.
When the view needs to change something on the screen, that value should be supplied from the store.
To make this happen, React provides setState() function which takes in an object of new states and does a compare and merge(similar to object.assign()) over the previous state and adds the new state to the state data store.
Whenever the data in the state store changes, react will trigger an re-render with the new state which the view consumes and shows it on the screen.
This cycle will continue throughout the component's lifetime.
If you see the above steps, it clearly shows a lot of things are happening behind when you change the state. So, when you mutate the state directly and call setState() with an empty object. The previous state will be polluted with your mutation. Due to which, the shallow compare and merge of two states will be disturbed or won't happen, because you'll have only one state now. This will disrupt all the React's Lifecycle Methods.
As a result, your app will behave abnormal or even crash. Most of the times, it won't affect your app because all the apps which we use for testing this are pretty small.
And another downside of mutation of Objects and Arrays in JavaScript is, when you assign an object or an array, you're just making a reference of that object or that array. When you mutate them, all the reference to that object or that array will be affected. React handles this in a intelligent way in the background and simply give us an API to make it work.
Most common errors done when handling states in React
// original state
this.state = {
a: [1,2,3,4,5]
}
// changing the state in react
// need to add '6' in the array
// bad approach
const b = this.state.a.push(6)
this.setState({
a: b
})
In the above example, this.state.a.push(6) will mutate the state directly. Assigning it to another variable and calling setState is same as what's shown below. As we mutated the state anyway, there's no point assigning it to another variable and calling setState with that variable.
// same as
this.state.a.push(6)
this.setState({})
Many people do this. This is so wrong. This breaks the beauty of React and is bad programming practice.
So, what's the best way to handle states in React? Let me explain.
When you need to change 'something' in the existing state, first get a copy of that 'something' from the current state.
// original state
this.state = {
a: [1,2,3,4,5]
}
// changing the state in react
// need to add '6' in the array
// create a copy of this.state.a
// you can use ES6's destructuring or loadash's _.clone()
const currentStateCopy = [...this.state.a]
Now, mutating currentStateCopy won't mutate the original state. Do operations over currentStateCopy and set it as the new state using setState().
currentStateCopy.push(6)
this.setState({
a: currentStateCopy
})
This is beautiful, right?
By doing this, all the references of this.state.a won't get affected until we use setState. This gives you control over your code and this'll help you write elegant test and make you confident about the performance of the code in production.
To answer your question,
Why can't I directly modify a component's state?
Well, you can. But, you need to face the following consequences.
When you scale, you'll be writing unmanageable code.
You'll lose control of state across components.
Instead of using React, you'll be writing custom codes over React.
Immutability is not a necessity because JavaScript is single threaded, but it's a good to follow practices which will help you in the long run.
PS. I've written about 10000 lines of mutable React JS code. If it breaks now, I don't know where to look into because all the values are mutated somewhere. When I realized this, I started writing immutable code. Trust me! That's the best thing you can do it to a product or an app.

The React docs for setState have this to say:
NEVER mutate this.state directly, as calling setState() afterwards may replace the mutation you made. Treat this.state as if it were immutable.
setState() does not immediately mutate this.state but creates a pending state transition. Accessing this.state after calling this method can potentially return the existing value.
There is no guarantee of synchronous operation of calls to setState and calls may be batched for performance gains.
setState() will always trigger a re-render unless conditional rendering logic is implemented in shouldComponentUpdate(). If mutable objects are being used and the logic cannot be implemented in shouldComponentUpdate(), calling setState() only when the new state differs from the previous state will avoid unnecessary re-renders.
Basically, if you modify this.state directly, you create a situation where those modifications might get overwritten.
Related to your extended questions 1) and 2), setState() is not immediate. It queues a state transition based on what it thinks is going on which may not include the direct changes to this.state. Since it's queued rather than applied immediately, it's entirely possible that something is modified in between such that your direct changes get overwritten.
If nothing else, you might be better off just considering that not directly modifying this.state can be seen as good practice. You may know personally that your code interacts with React in such a way that these over-writes or other issues can't happen but you're creating a situation where other developers or future updates can suddenly find themselves with weird or subtle issues.

the simplest answer to "
Why can't I directly modify a component's state:
is all about Updating phase.
when we update the state of a component all it's children are going to be rendered as well. or our entire component tree rendered.
but when i say our entire component tree is rendered that doesn’t mean that the entire DOM is updated.
when a component is rendered we basically get a react element, so that is updating our virtual dom.
React will then look at the virtual DOM, it also has a copy of the old virtual DOM, that is why we shouldn’t update the state directly, so we can have two different object references in memory, we have the old virtual DOM as well as the new virtual DOM.
then react will figure out what is changed and based on that it will update the real DOM accordingly .
hope it helps.

It surprises me that non of the current answers talk about pure/memo components (React.PureComponent or React.memo). These components only re-render when a change in one of the props is detected.
Say you mutate state directly and pass, not the value, but the over coupling object to the component below. This object still has the same reference as the previous object, meaning that pure/memo components won't re-render, even though you mutated one of the properties.
Since you don't always know what type of component you are working with when importing them from libraries, this is yet another reason to stick to the non-mutating rule.
Here is an example of this behaviour in action (using R.evolve to simplify creating a copy and updating nested content):
class App extends React.Component {
state = { some: { rather: { deeply: { nested: { stuff: 1 } } } } };
mutatingIncrement = () => {
this.state.some.rather.deeply.nested.stuff++;
this.setState({});
}
nonMutatingIncrement = () => {
this.setState(R.evolve(
{ some: { rather: { deeply: { nested: { stuff: n => n + 1 } } } } }
));
}
render() {
return (
<div>
Normal Component: <CounterDisplay {...this.state} />
<br />
Pure Component: <PureCounterDisplay {...this.state} />
<br />
<button onClick={this.mutatingIncrement}>mutating increment</button>
<button onClick={this.nonMutatingIncrement}>non-mutating increment</button>
</div>
);
}
}
const CounterDisplay = (props) => (
<React.Fragment>
Counter value: {props.some.rather.deeply.nested.stuff}
</React.Fragment>
);
const PureCounterDisplay = React.memo(CounterDisplay);
ReactDOM.render(<App />, document.querySelector("#root"));
<script src="https://unpkg.com/react#17/umd/react.production.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/react-dom#17/umd/react-dom.production.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/ramda#0/dist/ramda.min.js"></script>
<div id="root"></div>

To avoid every time to create a copy of this.state.element you can use update with $set or $push or many others from immutability-helper
e.g.:
import update from 'immutability-helper';
const newData = update(myData, {
x: {y: {z: {$set: 7}}},
a: {b: {$push: [9]}}
});

setState trigger re rendering of the components.when we want to update state again and again we must need to setState otherwise it doesn't work correctly.

My current understanding is based on this and this answers:
IF you do not use shouldComponentUpdate or any other lifecycle methods (like componentWillReceiveProps, componentWillUpdate, and componentDidUpdate) where you compare the old and new props/state
THEN
It is fine to mutate state and then call setState(), otherwise it is not fine.

Passing data to Parent but lagging [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Why does calling react setState method not mutate the state immediately?
(9 answers)
The useState set method is not reflecting a change immediately
(15 answers)
Closed 8 months ago.
I would like to ask why my state is not changing when I do an onClick event. I've search a while ago that I need to bind the onClick function in constructor but still the state is not updating.
Here's my code:
import React from 'react';
import Grid from 'react-bootstrap/lib/Grid';
import Row from 'react-bootstrap/lib/Row';
import Col from 'react-bootstrap/lib/Col';
import BoardAddModal from 'components/board/BoardAddModal.jsx';
import style from 'styles/boarditem.css';
class BoardAdd extends React.Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props);
this.state = {
boardAddModalShow: false
};
this.openAddBoardModal = this.openAddBoardModal.bind(this);
}
openAddBoardModal() {
this.setState({ boardAddModalShow: true }); // set boardAddModalShow to true
/* After setting a new state it still returns a false value */
console.log(this.state.boardAddModalShow);
}
render() {
return (
<Col lg={3}>
<a href="javascript:;"
className={style.boardItemAdd}
onClick={this.openAddBoardModal}>
<div className={[style.boardItemContainer,
style.boardItemGray].join(' ')}>
Create New Board
</div>
</a>
</Col>
);
}
}
export default BoardAdd

Your state needs some time to mutate, and since console.log(this.state.boardAddModalShow) executes before the state mutates, you get the previous value as output. So you need to write the console in the callback to the setState function
openAddBoardModal() {
this.setState({ boardAddModalShow: true }, function () {
console.log(this.state.boardAddModalShow);
});
}
setState is asynchronous. It means you can’t call it on one line and assume the state has changed on the next.
According to React docs
setState() does not immediately mutate this.state but creates a
pending state transition. Accessing this.state after calling this
method can potentially return the existing value. There is no
guarantee of synchronous operation of calls to setState and calls may
be batched for performance gains.
Why would they make setState async
This is because setState alters the state and causes rerendering. This
can be an expensive operation and making it synchronous might leave
the browser unresponsive.
Thus the setState calls are asynchronous as well as batched for better
UI experience and performance.

Fortunately setState() takes a callback. And this is where we get updated state.
Consider this example.
this.setState({ name: "myname" }, () => {
//callback
console.log(this.state.name) // myname
});
So When callback fires, this.state is the updated state.
You can get mutated/updated data in callback.

For anyone trying to do this with hooks, you need useEffect.
function App() {
const [x, setX] = useState(5)
const [y, setY] = useState(15)
console.log("Element is rendered:", x, y)
// setting y does not trigger the effect
// the second argument is an array of dependencies
useEffect(() => console.log("re-render because x changed:", x), [x])
function handleXClick() {
console.log("x before setting:", x)
setX(10)
console.log("x in *line* after setting:", x)
}
return <>
<div> x is {x}. </div>
<button onClick={handleXClick}> set x to 10</button>
<div> y is {y}. </div>
<button onClick={() => setY(20)}> set y to 20</button>
</>
}
Output:
Element is rendered: 5 15
re-render because x changed: 5
(press x button)
x before setting: 5
x in *line* after setting: 5
Element is rendered: 10 15
re-render because x changed: 10
(press y button)
Element is rendered: 10 20
Live version

Since setSatate is a asynchronous function so you need to console the state as a callback like this.
openAddBoardModal(){
this.setState({ boardAddModalShow: true }, () => {
console.log(this.state.boardAddModalShow)
});
}

setState() does not always immediately update the component. It may batch or defer the update until later. This makes reading this.state right after calling setState() a potential pitfall. Instead, use componentDidUpdate or a setState callback (setState(updater, callback)), either of which are guaranteed to fire after the update has been applied. If you need to set the state based on the previous state, read about the updater argument below.
setState() will always lead to a re-render unless shouldComponentUpdate() returns false. If mutable objects are being used and conditional rendering logic cannot be implemented in shouldComponentUpdate(), calling setState() only when the new state differs from the previous state will avoid unnecessary re-renders.
The first argument is an updater function with the signature:
(state, props) => stateChange
state is a reference to the component state at the time the change is being applied. It should not be directly mutated. Instead, changes should be represented by building a new object based on the input from state and props. For instance, suppose we wanted to increment a value in state by props.step:
this.setState((state, props) => {
return {counter: state.counter + props.step};
});

Think of setState() as a request rather than an immediate command to
update the component. For better perceived performance, React may
delay it, and then update several components in a single pass. React
does not guarantee that the state changes are applied immediately.
Check this for more information.
In your case you have sent a request to update the state. It takes time for React to respond. If you try to immediately console.log the state, you will get the old value.

The above solutions don't work for useState hooks.
One can use the below code
setState((prevState) => {
console.log(boardAddModalShow)
// call functions
// fetch state using prevState and update
return { ...prevState, boardAddModalShow: true }
});

This callback is really messy. Just use async await instead:
async openAddBoardModal(){
await this.setState({ boardAddModalShow: true });
console.log(this.state.boardAddModalShow);
}

If you want to track the state is updating or not then the another way of doing the same thing is
_stateUpdated(){
console.log(this.state. boardAddModalShow);
}
openAddBoardModal(){
this.setState(
{boardAddModalShow: true},
this._stateUpdated.bind(this)
);
}
This way you can call the method "_stateUpdated" every time you try to update the state for debugging.

Although there are many good answers, if someone lands on this page searching for alternative to useState for implementing UI components like Navigation drawers which should be opened or closed based on user input, this answer would be helpful.
Though useState seems handy approach, the state is not set immediately and thus, your website or app looks laggy... And if your page is large enough, react is going to take long time to compute what all should be updated upon state change...
My suggestion is to use refs and directly manipulate the DOM when you want UI to change immediately in response to user action.
Using state for this purspose is really a bad idea in case of react.

setState() is asynchronous. The best way to verify if the state is updating would be in the componentDidUpdate() and not to put a console.log(this.state.boardAddModalShow) after this.setState({ boardAddModalShow: true }) .
according to React Docs
Think of setState() as a request rather than an immediate command to update the component. For better perceived performance, React may delay it, and then update several components in a single pass. React does not guarantee that the state changes are applied immediately

According to React Docs
React does not guarantee that the state changes are applied immediately.
This makes reading this.state right after calling setState() a potential pitfall and can potentially return the existing value due to async nature .
Instead, use componentDidUpdate or a setState callback that is executed right after setState operation is successful.Generally we recommend using componentDidUpdate() for such logic instead.
Example:
import React from "react";
import ReactDOM from "react-dom";
import "./styles.css";
class App extends React.Component {
constructor() {
super();
this.state = {
counter: 1
};
}
componentDidUpdate() {
console.log("componentDidUpdate fired");
console.log("STATE", this.state);
}
updateState = () => {
this.setState(
(state, props) => {
return { counter: state.counter + 1 };
});
};
render() {
return (
<div className="App">
<h1>Hello CodeSandbox</h1>
<h2>Start editing to see some magic happen!</h2>
<button onClick={this.updateState}>Update State</button>
</div>
);
}
}
const rootElement = document.getElementById("root");
ReactDOM.render(<App />, rootElement);

this.setState({
isMonthFee: !this.state.isMonthFee,
}, () => {
console.log(this.state.isMonthFee);
})

when i was running the code and checking my output at console it showing the that it is undefined.
After i search around and find something that worked for me.
componentDidUpdate(){}
I added this method in my code after constructor().
check out the life cycle of react native workflow.
https://images.app.goo.gl/BVRAi4ea2P4LchqJ8

Yes because setState is an asynchronous function. The best way to set state right after you write set state is by using Object.assign like this:
For eg you want to set a property isValid to true, do it like this
Object.assign(this.state, { isValid: true })
You can access updated state just after writing this line.

Does react setState execute if the old and new value are the same?

Initial state:
this.state = {
someVar: true
};
What if I have a code that set state value the same as the old one:
this.setState({
someVar: true
});
Does the second snippet execute? And does it cost the performance if it does execute and run many times?

Does the second snippet execute? And does it cost the performance if it does execute and run many times?
Yes and yes. However, there are two approaches to preventing this from happening.
Extending with PureComponent
Normally when writing a React Component you would write:
class MyComponent extends React.Component {
If you want React to perform a shallow comparison on the new and old props and state, you would write instead:
class MyComponent extends React.PureComponent {
This is the simpler approach. More info from the official documentation, here.
Manually checking on shouldComponentUpdate()
You can always perform this logic yourself and tell React when to ignore a re-render with the shouldComponentUpdate() lifecycle method.
shouldComponentUpdate(nextProps, nextState) {
if(this.state.someVar === nextState.someVar) return false;
return true;
}
In the above example, the component will not re-render if someVar is the same across renders. However, any other update to another state or prop variable will trigger a re-render.
More info from the official documentation, here.

Yes, it does if you don't have any comparison regarding state in your shouldComponentUpdate.
You can do this by default if your component extends PureComponent instead.
You can read more here.

Setting state will only set new values, there is no comparison with the previous state. shouldComponentUpdate is then invoked to decide whether render should take place or not.
Note that it returns true by default.

Actually you can call multiple setStates and React may batch multiple setState() calls into a single update for performance. But keep in mind that this will be async (setState updates doc).
As for setting the same state, all other answers are correct. SetState will execute even when new value is equal.

ComponentDidUpdate SetState ReactJS Infinite loop

Even though there are many questions with the same subject line, I could not get an answer for my problem.
Problem
I have a select dropdown. On click of which, I call an Api which fetches some key values. I consider this set of key value input fields as a component. So each and every time onChange of my select drop-down, I have used lifecycle methods to handle API Calls. Also, I record these input key values and send back their state to parent component.
According to ReactJS lifecycle methods:
I use
componentDidMount
To call the API for the first time after initial render. This works.
componentDidUpdate
To call the API for subsequent API calls on select drop-down change. But here is the problem. When I try to update the state of input fields the program falls into an infinite loop and hence there are infinite API calls. I am pretty sure after debugging that the problem is with setState(), But I couldnt find the best way to handle states in componentDidUpdate method.
This link exactly replicates my problem but i want a standardized solution
Hope this is clear.
Thanks for the help in advance!

This is spelled out pretty clearly in the docs:
componentDidUpdate(prevProps) {
// Typical usage (don't forget to compare props):
if (this.props.userID !== prevProps.userID) {
this.fetchData(this.props.userID);
}
}
You may call setState() immediately in componentDidUpdate() but note
that it must be wrapped in a condition like in the example above, or
you’ll cause an infinite loop.

You can use setState() within componentDidUpdate(). But you have to use the condition for that. Otherwise, it get infinite loop.
As the example,
componentDidUpdate(){
if(this.props.id !== this.state.id) {
this.setState({
id: this.props.id
});
}
}

This happens because setState triggers a call to componentDidUpdate.
When componentDidUpdate is called, setState does not check whether or not state change has occurred. It simply calls componentDidUpdate again and again, which leads to stackoverflow.
class Component extends React.Component{
constructor(props){
super(props);
this.state = {changeState: false}
}
componentDidMount(){
this.setState({changeState: true});
}
componentDidUpdate(){
this.setState({changeState: false});
}
}
Here, first changeState is set to false in constructor, and then componentDidMount is triggered, which sets state of changeState to true. This state change triggers componentDidUpdate, which sets the state of changeState again to true. This triggers componentDidUpdate again and again.

You have to check the real difference between two state objects.
Below you can find my solution, My state object has movies, which is an array of objects. I edited and movie and then comparing these two arrays.
async componentDidUpdate(prevProps, prevState) {
if (prevState.movies.filter (e => this.state.movies.includes(e))) {
const response = await axios.get("http://localhost:3002/movies");
this.setState({ movies: response.data })
}
}

Yes you cannot setState() inside componentDidUpdate it would lead to infinite loop.Instead you can call a function onChange event and change the state there.

do I have to use this.state in React to maintain component state?

I am unclear about the use of this.state in React components. While I can create this.state.myvar, why should not I just create this.myvar?
class MyComponent extends Component {
state = {myvar: 123};
render() {
return <span>{this.state.myvar}</span>;
}
}
or
class MyComponent extends Component {
myvar = 123;
render() {
return <span>{this.myvar}</span>;
}
}
I realize that there are helpers like this.setState, but at the end this.state is just a convenience, right? Or does it play a bigger role in React? Should I avoid setting properties directly on this to store my state? If so, why?

No, in fact; rather wrong.
this.state in a react component is a special React-backed container that is only acknowledged as having been updated when you use setState, which triggers a re-render, which might cause DOM updates (or not, depending on what React's diff algorithm sees happening in the JS virtual dom).
You can, of course, also use object properties bound to this, but changing them does absolutely nothing for the component itself. React doesn't look at your full component instance for changes, it only looks (internally) at the state, and (when changed by parents) at the props.
As such, you can't "create" things like this.state.myvar and then expect them to actually exist from lifecycle function to lifecycle function: as a special management construct, any values you tack onto state outside of proper this.setState(...) calls have undefined behaviour. They might exist, or they might not. If you really are working with the internal state, then you need to signal changes via this.setState({ myvar: value }).
Of course, that doesn't mean you can't use this.myvar, that'll work fine, but changing it will not "do" anything other than literally just that.
When would you use this.val instead of state? When your component has to perform operations that lead to an "intermediate" state, neither being one renderable state, nor the next. For instance, when code can update a state value multiple times between renders, during those changes your component is in an intermediate state, and so you don't want it to re-render. In fact, expecting it to can lead to huge bugs:
...
doTest() {
this.setState({ val: this.state.val+1 });
this.setState({ val: this.state.val+1 });
this.setState({ val: this.state.val+1 });
},
...
This code will not yield a this.state.val that's 3 higher than before, because state updates are queued, and overwrite each other. Only the last instruction before a re-render "wins". So in that case you'd need something like:
...
doTest() {
var localval = this.state.val;
localval++;
localval++;
localval++;
this.setState({ val: localval });
},
...
And then if we also need that value accessible outside of this function, then we finally have a legitimate use for a this property:
...
doTest() {
this.accessibleval = this.state.val;
this.updateValueAFewTimes();
this.setState({ val: this.accessibleval });
},
...

this.state plays a larger role than you realize.
Setting state via this.setState triggers the component to re-render (among other things). Otherwise, React would have no way of knowing when something it depends on changed.