React MUI - Clearing input on Autocomplete component - reactjs

Question

I have an Autocomplete component which displays the coutries name and flags as in the example from the MUI doc.
My goal is simply the following: once the Autocomplete component is clicked, the country's name must be cleared displaying only the placeholder.
I achieved this with a simple onClick event in the renderInput which triggers the following function:
const handleClear = (e) => {
e.target.value = "";
};
If trying the code everything works as expected, apparently.
Actually, the clearing happens only when the country's name is clicked, but if a different portion of the component is clicked, like the flag or the dropdown arrow, the country's name is simply focused, not cleared.
In short, here the current behaviour:
and here the expected behaviour:
Is there a way to fix this?

Answer 1

That's behavior occurs because when you click on the flag, the e.target won´t be the input element, but the wrapper div. You can see this just adding a console.log to the handleClear function:
const handleClear = (e) => {
console.log("clicked TARGET ELEMENT: ", e.target);
// If you click on the input, will see:
// <input ...
// And if you click on the flag, you will see:
// <div ...
};
If you want to control the input state value and the text value separately, you probably should go with the two states control - check it on MUI docs.
The code will be something like:
export default function CountrySelect() {
const [value, setValue] = useState(null);
const [inputValue, setInputValue] = React.useState("");
const handleClear = (e) => {
console.log("clicked TARGET ELEMENT: ", e.target);
setInputValue("");
};
return (
<Autocomplete
id="country-select-demo"
disableClearable
value={value}
onChange={(event, newValue) => {
setValue(newValue);
}}
inputValue={inputValue}
onInputChange={(event, newInputValue) => {
setInputValue(newInputValue);
}}
openOnFocus
sx={{ width: 300 }}
options={countries}
autoHighlight
getOptionLabel={(option) => option.label}
renderOption={(props, option) => (
<Box
component="li"
sx={{ "& > img": { mr: 2, flexShrink: 0 } }}
{...props}
>
<img
loading="lazy"
width="20"
src={`https://flagcdn.com/w20/${option.code.toLowerCase()}.png`}
srcSet={`https://flagcdn.com/w40/${option.code.toLowerCase()}.png 2x`}
alt=""
/>
{option.label} ({option.code}) +{option.phone}
</Box>
)}
renderInput={(params) => (
<TextField
{...params}
label="Choose a country"
placeholder="Choose a country"
onClick={handleClear}
InputProps={{
...params.InputProps,
startAdornment: value ? (
<InputAdornment disablePointerEvents position="start">
<img
loading="lazy"
width="48"
src={`https://flagcdn.com/w20/${value.code.toLowerCase()}.png`}
srcSet={`https://flagcdn.com/w40/${value.code.toLowerCase()}.png 2x`}
alt=""
/>
</InputAdornment>
) : null
}}
/>
)}
/>
);
}

Answer 2

Instead of using onClick on TextField, you can use onOpen props and pass handleClear function in it. It works then. Selected value gets cleared whenever autocomplete is open.
Working Demo: CodeSandBox.io