Additional details to the previous answer:
While React's setState is asynchronous (both classes and hooks), and it's tempting to use that fact to explain the observed behavior, it is not the reason why it happens.
TLDR: The reason is a closure scope around an immutable const value.
read the value in render function (not inside nested functions):
useEffect(() => { setMovies(result) }, [])
console.log(movies)
add the variable into dependencies (and use the react-hooks/exhaustive-deps eslint rule):
useEffect(() => { setMovies(result) }, [])
useEffect(() => { console.log(movies) }, [movies])
use a mutable reference (when the above is not possible):
const moviesRef = useRef(initialValue)
useEffect(() => {
moviesRef.current = result
console.log(moviesRef.current)
}, [])
If async was the only reason, it would be possible to await setState().
However, both props and state are assumed to be unchanging during 1 render.
Treat
this.stateas if it were immutable.
With hooks, this assumption is enhanced by using constant values with the const keyword:
const [state, setState] = useState('initial')
The value might be different between 2 renders, but remains a constant inside the render itself and inside any closures (functions that live longer even after render is finished, e.g. useEffect, event handlers, inside any Promise or setTimeout).
Consider following fake, but synchronous, React-like implementation:
// sync implementation:
let internalState
let renderAgain
const setState = (updateFn) => {
internalState = updateFn(internalState)
renderAgain()
}
const useState = (defaultState) => {
if (!internalState) {
internalState = defaultState
}
return [internalState, setState]
}
const render = (component, node) => {
const {html, handleClick} = component()
node.innerHTML = html
renderAgain = () => render(component, node)
return handleClick
}
// test:
const MyComponent = () => {
const [x, setX] = useState(1)
console.log('in render:', x) // ?
const handleClick = () => {
setX(current => current + 1)
console.log('in handler/effect/Promise/setTimeout:', x) // ? NOT updated
}
return {
html: `<button>${x}</button>`,
handleClick
}
}
const triggerClick = render(MyComponent, document.getElementById('root'))
triggerClick()
triggerClick()
triggerClick()<div id="root"></div>