This article is aimed at people who have already had their first approach to React, and who, as beginners, have doubts about how setState works and how to use it correctly. It should also help mid to senior devs use cleaner and more abstracted ways of setting state, and make higher-order-functions handle and abstract state.

Just read and have fun!

So grab a cup of coffee and keep reading! ?

Basic Concepts of setState( )

React Components let you split the user interface (UI) into independent, reusable pieces, so you can think about each piece in isolation.

Conceptually, components are like JavaScript functions. They accept arbitrary inputs (called “props”) and return React elements describing what should appear on the screen.

If you need to give the user the opportunity to input something or in some way change the variables the component is receiving as props, you’ll need setState.

Whether you declare a Component as a function or a class, it must never modify its own props.

All React Components must act like pure functions with respect to their props. This means functions that never try to change their inputs and always return the same result for the same inputs.

Of course, application UIs are dynamic and change over time. That’s why state was created.

State allows React components to change their output over time in response to user actions, network responses, and anything else, without violating this rule.

Components defined as classes have some additional features. Local state is a feature available only to class Components.

setState is the API method provided with the library so that the user is able to define and manipulate state over time.

Three Rules of Thumb When Using setState( )

Do Not Modify State Directly

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wrong and right ways of setting state

State Updates May Be Asynchronous

React may batch multiple setState() calls into a single update for performance.

Because this.props and this.state may be updated asynchronously, you should not rely on their values for calculating the next state.

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manipulate state with a functional approach

You should always do this kind of manipulation with a functional approach, supplying the state and props and returning the new state based on the former.

State Updates are Merged

When you call setState(), React merges the object you provide into the current state.

In the example below, we’re updating the variable dogNeedsVaccination independently of the other state variables.

The merging is shallow, so this.setState({ dogNeedsVaccination: true }) leaves the other variables intact, replacing only the value of dogNeedsVaccination.

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Respect the Data Flow and Avoid State the Max

Data flows down! Neither parent nor child components can know if a certain component is stateful or stateless, and they shouldn’t care whether it is defined as a function or a class.

That’s why state is often called local or encapsulated. It is not accessible to any component other than the one that owns and sets it.

When you setState a prop and use it in your component, you’re breaking the flow of the rendering props. If for some reason the prop passed into your component changed in the parent component, the child will not re-render auto-magically ?!

Let’s check an example:

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Here you have a Home Component which is generating a magic number each 1000ms and setting it into its own state.

After that it renders the number and invokes three Child Components (Siblings) that will receive the magic number with the objective of displaying it using three different approaches:

First Approach

Component ChildOfHome is respecting the React props cascade flow and, considering that the objective is only to show the magic number, it’s rendering the props received directly.

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Second Approach

Component ChildOfHomeBrother receives the props from its parent and, invoking componentDidMount, sets the magic number into state. Then it renders the state.magicNumber.

This example doesn’t work because render() doesn’t know that a prop has changed so it is not triggering the re-rendering of the component. As the component is not re-rendered anymore, componentDidMount is not invoked and the display is not updated.

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Third Approach

Usually when we try to make it work using the second approach we think something is missing. Instead of taking a step back we keep on adding stuff to the code to make it work!

So in this third approach we’ve added componentDidUpdate to check if there’s a change in props to trigger the re-rendering of the component. This is unnecessary and leads us to unclean code. It also brings with it performance costs that will be multiplied by the number of times we do this in a big App where we have a lot of chained Components and side effects.

This is wrong unless you need to allow the user to change the prop value received.

If you don’t need to change the prop value, always try to keep things working according to the React flow (First Approach).

You can check a working webpage with this example I’ve prepared for you in Glitch. Take a look and have fun ?

Also check out the code in the Home.js and HomeCodeCleaned.js (without the HTML stuff) in my repo about this article.

How to setState

So at this point I think it’s time to get our hands dirty!

Let’s play a little bit with setState and improve on that! Just follow along and grab another cup of coffee!

Let’s create a small form to update user data:

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Small exercise on setState()

Here’s the code for the example above:

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Initial Home Component

We are setting state as an object, and there’s no problem because our current state doesn’t depend on our last state.

What if we create one more form field to introduce and display Last Name?

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Last Name feature
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abstracted handleFormChange

Nice! We’ve abstracted the handleFormChange method to be able to handle all the input fields and setState.

What if we add a toggle button to mark the data as valid or invalid and a counter to know how many changes we’ve done to the state?

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Screenshot showing the console.log of the component state
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handleFormChange updated with checkbox and counter handlers

Yeah! We are rocking! We’ve abstracted a lot of stuff!

Hmmm… Let’s say I do not want a checkbox to control the isValid variable but a simple toggle button.

Let’s also separate the counter handler from this method. It works well, but in more complex situations where React needs to batch/group changes, it’s not a good policy to rely on the this.state.counter variable to add one more. This value can change without you being aware of it.

We’re using a shallow copy of it at the instant the operation is invoked, and at that certain point in time you don’t know if its value is the one you were expecting or not!

Let’s go a little bit functional!

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Screenshot showing the Valid/Invalid Toggle and the console.log of the state.counter variable
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separation of the control handlers

Okay — We’ve lost abstraction because we’ve separated the handlers, but it’s for a good reason!

So at this time we keep the handleFormChange passing an object to the setState API method. But the handleCounter and handleIsValid methods are now functional and start by grabbing the current state and then, depending on that state, changing it to the next one.

This is the correct way of changing the state of variables that depend on the previous state.

What if we want to console.log() state changes of the firstName and lastName input forms each time a change occurs? Let’s give it a try!

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logFields() method

Nice! Each time the handleFormChange occurs (which means a new key press happened) the logFields() method is invoked and logs the current state into the console!

Let’s check the browser console:

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screenshot of the console.log of firstName and lastName state

Wait! What happened here folks? The console log is one change before the current form input! Why is this happening?

setState is async!!

We already knew this but now we’re seeing it with our eyes! What’s happening there? Let’s take a look at the handleFormChange and logFields methods above.

So the handleFormChange method receives the event name and value, then does a setState of this data. Then it calls the handleCounter to update the counter info, and in the end invokes the logFields method. The logFields method grabs the currentState and returns ‘Eduard’ instead of ‘Eduardo’.

The thing is: setState is async and doesn’t act in the moment. React is doing its job and executes the logFields method first, leaving setState for the next event loop.

But how can we avoid this kind of situation?

Well, the setState API has a callback to avoid this situation:

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setState API method

If we want the logFields() to take into account the recent changes we’ve made to the state, we need to invoke it inside the callback, like this:

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using the setState() API method callback handler

Okay, now it’s working!

We’re telling React: “Hey React! Beware that when you invoke the logFields method I want you to have the state already updated okay? I trust you!”

React says: “Okay Edo! I’m going to handle all this batch of stuff I usually do in the backyard with the setState thingy and only when I’m finished with that I’ll invoke logFields()! Cool man! Relax!”

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screenshot of the console.log() of fullName

And as a matter of fact — it worked!

Okay everyone! By this time we’ve handled the major pitfalls of setState.

Do you have the courage to go beyond the wall? Grab a cup of coffee and let’s get really kewl…

Getting Fancy with setState( )

Now that we have handleCounter and handleIsValid methods, and setState() expressed with functions, we can compose the state update with other functions! Me likez composition! Let’s have some fun!

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abstracting handleIsValid

We can take the logic inside setState to a function outside the class component. Let’s call it toggleIsValid. ☝️

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toggleIsValid Function

Now this function can live outside the class component, anywhere in your app.

What if we use a higher order function?

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changing toggleIsValid by an higher order function

Wow! Now we’re not invoking the toggleIsValid function anymore. We’re invoking an abstract higher order function called toggleKey and passing a key (string in this case) into it.

How do we need to change the toggleIsValid function now?

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toggleKey higher order function

What?! Now we have a function called toggleKey that receives a key and returns a new function which changes state according to the supplied key.

This toggleKey can be in a library or in a helper file. It can be invoked in a lot of different contexts to change the state of whatever you want to its opposite.

Great!

Let’s do the same with the increment counter handler:

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handleCounter abstraction to invoke an higher-order-function
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incrementCounter higher-order-function

Yeah! It works! So nice. Let’s get crazy now…

Shooting the Moon and Getting Back

What if we create a generic makeUpdater function that receives the transformation function you want to apply, takes the key, and returns the state function managing the state with the transformation function and the key? Little bit confused? Let’s go!

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makeUpdater higher-order-function

Ok that’s enough…Let’s stop here. ?

You can check all the code we’ve done in this GitHub repo.

Last But Not Least

Don’t forget to avoid the max using state and respect React rendering props cascade.

Don’t forget setState is async.

Don’t forget setState can take an object or a function

Don’t forget that you should pass a function in when your next state depends on your previous state.

Bibliography

  1. React Documentation
  2. Reach Tech Courses by Ryan Florence, which I really recommend.

Thank you very much!