Why calling react setState method doesn t mutate the state immediately

Question

I m reading Forms section of reactjs documentation and just tried this code to demonstrate onChange usage  JSBIN    var React  require  react     var ControlledForm  React createClass       getInitialState  function             return               value   initial value                         handleChange  function event            console log this state value           this setState  value  event target value            console log this state value                render  function             return                lt input type  text  value  this state value  onChange  this handleChange   gt                        React render       lt ControlledForm  gt     document getElementById  mount        When I update the  lt input  gt  value in the browser  the second console log inside the handleChange callback prints the same value as the first console log  Why I can t see the result of this setState  value  event target value   in the scope of handleChange callback

User · Accepted Answer

From React s documentation      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    If you want a function to be executed after the state change occurs  pass it in as a callback   this setState  value  event target value   function          console log this state value

User · Answer

Simply putting - this setState  data  value   is asynchronous in   nature that means it moves out of the Call Stack and only comes back   to the Call Stack unless it is resolved    Please read about Event Loop to have a clear picture about Asynchronous nature in JS and why it takes time to update -      https   medium com front-end-weekly javascript-event-loop-explained-4cd26af121d4   Hence -       this setState  data value        console log this state data      will give undefined or unupdated value   as it takes time to update  To achieve the above process -       this setState  data value  function           console log this state data

User · Answer

As mentioned in the React documentation  there is no guarantee of setState being fired synchronously  so your console log may return the state prior to it updating   Michael Parker mentions passing a callback within the setState  Another way to handle the logic after state change is via the componentDidUpdate lifecycle method  which is the method recommended in React docs      Generally we recommend using componentDidUpdate   for such logic instead    This is particularly useful when there may be successive setStates fired  and you would like to fire the same function after every state change  Rather than adding a callback to each setState  you could place the function inside of the componentDidUpdate  with specific logic inside if necessary      example componentDidUpdate prevProps  prevState      if  this state value  gt  prevState value        this foo

User · Answer

You could try using ES7 async await  For instance using your example   handleChange  async function event        console log this state value       await this setState  value  event target value        console log this state value

User · Answer

Watch out the react lifecycle methods    http   projects wojtekmaj pl react-lifecycle-methods-diagram  https   reactjs org docs react-component html   I worked for several hours to find out that getDerivedStateFromProps will be called after every setState

User · Answer

async-await syntax works perfectly for something like the following     changeStateFunction        gt         Some Worker      this setState  prevState    gt       year  funcHandleYear      month  funcHandleMonth         goNextMonth   async      gt      await this changeStateFunction      const history   createBrowserHistory      history push   calendar year   this state year  amp month   this state month        goPrevMonth   async      gt      await this changeStateFunction      const history   createBrowserHistory      history push   calendar year   this state year  amp month   this state month

[javascript] Why calling react setState method doesn't mutate the state immediately?

Examples related to javascript

Examples related to reactjs

Examples related to react-jsx