reactjs / reactjs/react.dev

A note about not firing side effects in useState(prev => next) ?

Open
#2,882 2 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Dominant language
JavaScript
Stars
11.8k
Forks
7.9k
Avg merge
1d 11h
Merged PRs (30d)
11

Description

So I ended up doing this by mistake after a wonky merge:

let Foo = (props) => {
    let [bar, setBar] = useState();
    
    let handleClick = () => {
        useState(bar => {
            let newBar = bar + 1;
            props.handleBarChange(newBar); // bad, which isn't surprising
            return newBar;
        });
    };

    return <div onClick={handleClick}>click me</div>;
};

If you fire a side effect such as calling something that sets state in a higher component from a useState updater function, you get the error "Cannot update a component from inside the function body of a different component" (but not always! It seems to depend on internal timing). This definitely seems like a bad idea when you look at it, but I couldn't find any mention in the docs that this is bad.

https://reactjs.org/docs/hooks-reference.html#functional-updates

There is the note about side effects generally on useEffect:

Mutations, subscriptions, timers, logging, and other side effects are not allowed inside the main body of a function component (referred to as React’s render phase)

But this is not in the main body of a function component, doesn't feel like a true side effect as it's still just setting state within React, and doesn't feel like it's in the render phase either.

I initially wanted to comment about this here (https://github.com/facebook/react/issues/18178), because the general message of that thread was "don't set state of another component in a render method", and I've managed to get this error message without doing that, but the thread is locked. Thanks.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the linked Hooks reference page, especially the functional updates section, and compare its guidance with the quoted useEffect side-effect note. Clarify whether side effects inside a useState updater are unsupported and explain the relevant behavior; done means the documentation addresses this example without ambiguity.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
javascript, react
Domain
documentation
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.