Forcing a react functional component to trigger a rerender - reactjs

I'm trying to get a functional component to force a rerender whenever the testFn executes. I thought to use state to do this (if there's a better way then please speak up), which appears to successfully force a rerender but only twice, then nothing.
I built a simple demo to emulate the issue as using my real app is too difficult to demonstrate but the same principles should presumably apply (my real demo fetches data when the function executes and displays it on the page, but it's not rerendering and I have to refresh the page to see the new data, hence why I want to trigger a rerender).
import React, { useState } from "react";
const App = () => {
const [, rerender] = useState(false);
const testFn = () => {
console.log("test Fn");
rerender(true);
};
return (
<div>
<p>test</p>
<button onClick={testFn}>clickk</button>
{console.log("render")}
</div>
);
};
export default App;
I've also made a Stackblitz demo for conveinence.
Can anyone solve this demo or think of a better way of implementing it?
Thanks for any help here.

It triggers a re-render when the state changes.
The first time you click the button you change the state from false to true so a rerender is triggered.
Subsequent clicks you change it from true to true which isn't a change, so it doesn't.
You could toggle it:
const [render, rerender] = useState(false);
and
rerender(!render);
so it actually changes.
… but this smells of being an XY Problem, and you should probably be changing something which is actually being rendered.

State is the right way, since state changes are the primary way to cause re-renders. I'd increment a counter:
const [, setCount] = useState(0);
// force a re-render by running:
setCount(c => c + 1)
But this is still a very odd thing to do. In almost all cases, a much more elegant solution will be implementable, such as by putting data that changes into state, and calling the state setter when the data updates.

Related

The react component resets accidentally

Is there any special condition, that causes a react component to reset completely (not just re-render)?
What do I mean by reset?
Reverting back ALL STATES to their default values (that given in useState()) and re-running all my useEffect() callbacks (even with empty dependency-list ([])) … LIKE ANOTHER OR A NEW COMPONENT!
This wonderful event happens for one of my components during its lifetime (after a lot of correct re-rendering for this component and other components). I don't know why! And I thought this is an impossible event in React:
export default function Project (props) {
const [temp, setTemp] = useState(false)
const tempRef = useRef(false)
console.debug({ temp }, tempRef)
useEffect(() => {
console.debug('INITIALIZATION:', { temp }, tempRef)
setTemp(true)
tempRef.current = true
}, [])
// ...
}
I'm suspicious of react-router-dom#6.0.0-beta.8 that I used in my project. But I can't change it, because of the scale of the project and a lot of usage of it.
UPDATE: All parents of this component are working as expected. Even after this event (for this component).

Do I have to worry about useState causing a re-render?

NB: I've asked this on wordpress.stackexchange, but it's not getting any response there, so trying here.
I'm not sure if this is WordPress specific, WordPress's overloaded React specific, or just React, but I'm creating a new block plugin for WordPress, and if I use useState in its edit function, the page is re-rendered, even if I never call the setter function.
import { useState } from '#wordpress/element';
export default function MyEdit( props ) {
const {
attributes: {
anAttribute
},
setAttributes,
} = props;
const [ isValidating, setIsValidating ] = useState( false );
const post_id = wp.data.select("core/editor").getCurrentPostId();
console.log('Post ID is ', post_id);
const MyPlaceholder = () => {
return(
<div>this is a test</div>
);
};
const Component = MyPlaceholder;
return <Component />;
}
If I comment out const [ isValidating, setIsValidating ] = useState( false ); then that console.log happens once. If I leave it in, it happens twice; even if I never check the value of isValidating, never mind calling setIsValidating. I don't want to over-optimize things, but, equally, if I use this block n times on a page, the page is getting rendered 2n times. It's only on the admin side of things, because it's in the edit, so maybe not a big deal, but ... it doesn't seem right. Is this expected behavior for useState? Am I doing something wrong? Do I have to worry about it (from a speed perspective, from a potential race conditions as everything is re-rendered multiple times)?
In your example code, the console.log statement is being immediately evaluated each time and triggering the redraw/re-rendering of your block. Once console.log is removed, only the state changes will trigger re-rendering.
As the Gutenberg Editor is based on Redux, if the state changes, any components that rely on that state are re-rendered. When a block is selected in the Editor, the selected block is rendered synchronously while all other blocks in the Editor are rendered asynchronously. The WordPress Gutenberg developers are aware of re-rendering being a performance concern and have taken steps to reduce re-rendering.
When requesting data from wp.data, useEffect() should be used to safely await asynchronous data:
import { useState, useEffect } from '#wordpress/element';
export default function MyEdit(props) {
...
const [curPostId, setCurPostId] = useState(false);
useEffect(() => {
async function getMyPostId() {
const post_id = await wp.data.select("core/editor").getCurrentPostId();
setCurPostId(post_id);
}
getMyPostId();
}, []); // Run once
const MyPlaceholder = () => {
return (
<div>Current Post Id: {curPostId}</div>
);
};
const Component = MyPlaceholder;
return <Component />;
}
As mentioned in the question, useState() is used in core blocks for setting and updating state. The state hook was introducted in React 16.8, its a fairly recent change and you may come across older Gutenberg code example that set state via the class constructor and don't use hooks.
Yes, you have to worry about always put an array of dependencies, so that, it won't re-render, As per your query, let's say are planning to edit a field here is the sample code
const [edit, setEdit]= useState(props);
useEffect(() => {
// logic here
},[edit])
that [edit] will check if there is any changes , and according to that it will update the DOM, if you don't put any [](array of dependencies) it will always go an infinite loop,
I guess this is expected behavior. If I add a similar console.log to native core blocks that use useState, I get the same effect. It seems that WordPress operates with use strict, and according to this answer, React double-invokes a number of things when in strict mode.

React renders without actually changing the state when setInterval is used

I'm going to introduce my question in two steps with slightly different code blocks in both.
Step 1:
Below we have a React application which renders itself every two seconds and therefore causes the browser to print render to the console. If the user presses any key, the renders will stop which in turn stops the console prints. Please ignore the line commented out for now.
import { useState, useEffect, useRef } from 'react';
function App() {
const [number, setUpdate] = useState(0);
const [isPaused, setIsPaused] = useState(false);
const intervalRef = useRef(undefined);
useEffect(() => {
intervalRef.current = setInterval(() => setUpdate(prevNumber => ++prevNumber), 2000);
window.addEventListener('keydown', handleKeyDown);
}, []);
const handleKeyDown = () => {
clearInterval(intervalRef.current);
console.log('console log here');
// setIsPaused(isPaused);
};
console.log('render');
return null;
};
export default App;
Here is a screenshot of the application:
What has happened above, is that I've let the component render five times and then I've pressed a key to stop the component from rendering.
Step 2:
In step 2 we have exactly the same application with the exception of not commenting out the state set in handleKeyDown.
const handleKeyDown = () => {
clearInterval(intervalRef.current);
console.log('console log here');
// This is no longer commented out. Why does it cause a new render?
setIsPaused(isPaused);
};
Here is a screenshot of the application with the code change made in step 2:
Again, I've let the component to render five times after I've pressed a key. But now there is an extra render even though the state should not be changing (because the state is not actually mutating because we set the same value as was already in the state) by setIsPaused(isPaused).
I'm having difficulty to understand what might the reason to cause the extra render at step 2. Maybe it's something obvious?
setIsPaused(isPaused) never causes a new render if I comment out the other state change which is run by setInterval which makes me even more baffled.
This is a known quirk, see #17474. It’s a side effect introduced by the new concurrent mode. The component function did re-run, but DOM will remain untampered.
I also found people post this interesting example. You can try exp with the code. The component function contains something like <div>{Math.random()}</div> although random number did changed in that extra re-run of the function, it wouldn’t reflect onto DOM if state isn’t changed.
Conclusion. You can consider this side effect harmless most of time.
U̶p̶d̶a̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶a̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶n̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶m̶e̶a̶n̶s̶ ̶D̶O̶M̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶r̶e̶r̶e̶n̶d̶e̶r̶,̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶r̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶̶s̶e̶t̶I̶s̶P̶a̶u̶s̶e̶d̶(̶i̶s̶P̶a̶u̶s̶e̶d̶)̶̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶r̶e̶r̶e̶n̶d̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶D̶O̶M̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶s̶e̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶g̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶u̶p̶d̶a̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶v̶a̶l̶u̶e̶.̶ ̶(̶I̶ ̶a̶m̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶s̶i̶d̶e̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶o̶n̶l̶y̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶f̶i̶e̶l̶d̶ ̶̶i̶s̶P̶a̶u̶s̶e̶d̶̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶e̶l̶s̶e̶)̶
Update: I did know this behavior existed until reading the accepted answer.

React unnecessary render of element

I've just started learning React and was putting together a small app which makes calls to a quotes API. The API has an endpoint that returns a random quote. When the app initially loads it makes a call to the API and shows a quote, and there's a button that can be clicked to get a new random quote (new call to the API).
I have a root component named App. This component has a QuoteWrap component as a child. The QuoteWrap component has two children: the button that is used to get a new random quote and a Quote component which shows the author of the quote and the quote itself. This is the code inside of the QuoteWrap component:
export default function QuoteWrap() {
const { quoteData, isLoading, fireNewCall } = useQuote();
const handleClick = () => {
fireNewCall();
};
return(
<>
<button onClick={handleClick}>Get random quote</button>
{ isLoading ?
<h2>Loading...</h2>
:
<Quote author={quoteData.author} quote={quoteData.quote} />
}
</>
);
}
useQuote() is a custom hook that manages the calls to the API and returns 3 values: 1- the data, 2- if a call is in process and 3- a function to make a call to the API.
Obviously, every time the button is clicked, the whole QuoteWrap component is re-rendered (as quoteData and isLoading change). But really, the button doesn't need to be re-rendered as it never changes.
So I thought: ok, I can move the button up to the App component. But then I don't have access to the fireNewCall function in the useQuote hook.
How can I prevent the button from being re-rendered? Is it even important in this case or am I getting too obsessed with React re-renders?
Thanks!
Your component will re-render every time the handleClick function changes, which is every time that QuoteWrap is rendered.
The solution is the useCallback hook. useCallback will return the same function to handleClick, every time QuoteWrap is rendered, so long as the dependencies haven't changed.
https://reactjs.org/docs/hooks-reference.html#usecallback
You would use it like this:
const handleClick = useCallback(() => {
fireNewCall();
},[fireNewCall]);
fireNewCall is the dependency, so as long as useQuote returns a stable fireNewCall function, then your button will not re-render, since the handleClick property hasn't changed.
I think you might get too obsessed with React re-renders. The button should be re-rendered because, handleClick should be changed when fireNewCall changed for some case. Even if, handleClick will never be changed. It's no need to think about an element re-render.
Pretty much what Benjamin and Viet said - in your original code, a new function is assigned to handleClick on each render. You can use React.useCallback to maintain the original function reference and only update it when something in the dependency array changes - in this case, just fireNewCall needs to go into the dependency array.
But as Viet says, don't get too obsessed with it. Using React.useCallback might even slow down your code. Check out Kent C. Dodds When to useMemo and useCallback post for more insight.

Can't perform a React State update on unMounted child component?

Am getting this warning:
Can't perform a React state update on unmounted component. This is a no-op...
It results from a child component and I can't figure out how to make it go away.
Please note that I have read many other posts about why this happens, and understand the basic issue. However, most solutions suggest cancelling subscriptions in a componentWillUnmount style function (I'm using react hooks)
I don't know if this points to some larger fundamental misunderstanding I have of React,but here is essentially what i have:
import React, { useEffect, useRef } from 'react';
import Picker from 'emoji-picker-react';
const MyTextarea = (props) => {
const onClick = (event, emojiObject) => {
//do stuff...
}
const isMountedRef = useRef(true);
useEffect(() => {
isMountedRef.current = true;
});
useEffect(() => {
return () => {
console.log('will unmount');
isMountedRef.current = false;
}
});
return (
<div>
<textarea></textarea>
{ isMountedRef.current ? (
<Picker onEmojiClick={onClick}/>
):null
}
</div>
);
};
export default MyTextarea;
(tl;dr) Please note:
MyTextarea component has a parent component which is only rendered on a certain route.
Theres also a Menu component that once clicked, changes the route and depending on the situation will either show MyTextarea's parent component or show another component.
This warning happens once I click the Menu to switch off MyTextarea's parent component.
More Context
Other answers on StackOverflow suggest making changes to prevent state updates when a component isn't mounted. In my situation, I cannot do that because I didn't design the Picker component (rendered by MyTextarea). The Warning originates from this <Picker onEmojiClick={onClick}> line but I wouldn't want to modify this off-the-shelf component.
That's explains my attempt to either render the component or not based on the isMountedRef. However this doesn't work either. What happens is the component is either rendered if i set useRef(true), or it's never rendered at all if i set useRef(null) as many have suggested.
I'm not exactly sure what your problem actually is (is it that you can't get rid of the warning or that the <Picker> is either always rendering or never is), but I'll try to address all the problems I see.
Firstly, you shouldn't need to conditionally render the <Picker> depending on whether MyTextArea is mounted or not. Since components only render after mounting, the <Picker> will never render if the component it's in hasn't mounted.
That being said, if you still want to keep track of when the component is mounted, I'd suggest not using hooks, and using componentDidMount and componentWillUnmount with setState() instead. Not only will this make it easier to understand your component's lifecycle, but there are also some problems with the way you're using hooks.
Right now, your useRef(true) will set isMountedRef.current to true when the component is initialized, so it will be true even before its mounted. useRef() is not the same as componentDidMount().
Using 'useEffect()' to switch isMountedRef.current to true when the component is mounted won't work either. While it will fire when the component is mounted, useEffect() is for side effects, not state updates, so it doesn't trigger a re-render, which is why the component never renders when you set useRef(null).
Also, your useEffect() hook will fire every time your component updates, not just when it mounts, and your clean up function (the function being returned) will also fire on every update, not just when it unmounts. So on every update, isMountedRef.current will switch from true to false and back to true. However, none of this matters because the component won't re-render anyways (as explained above).
If you really do need to use useEffect() then you should combine it into one function and use it to update state so that it triggers a re-render:
const [isMounted, setIsMounted] = useState(false); // Create state variables
useEffect(() => {
setIsMounted(true); // The effect and clean up are in one function
return () => {
console.log('will unmount');
setIsMounted(false);
}
}, [] // This prevents firing on every update, w/o it you'll get an infinite loop
);
Lastly, from the code you shared, your component couldn't be causing the warning because there are no state updates anywhere in your code. You should check the picker's repo for issues.
Edit: Seems the warning is caused by your Picker package and there's already an issue for it https://github.com/ealush/emoji-picker-react/issues/142

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