How to use setState to update state.item in state?

Question

I'm creating an application where users can design their own forms. For example. Specify the name of the field and details of other columns that should be included.

This component is available as a JSFiddle.

My initial state looks like this:

var DynamicForm = React.createClass({
  getInitialState: function() {
   var items = {};
   items[1] = { name: 'field 1', populate_at: 'web_start',
                same_as: 'customer_name',
                autocomplete_from: 'customer_name', title: '' };
   items[2] = { name: 'field 2', populate_at: 'web_end',
                same_as: 'user_name',
                    autocomplete_from: 'user_name', title: '' };

     return { items };
   },

  render: function() {
     var _this = this;
     return (
       <div>
         { Object.keys(this.state.items).map(function (key) {
           var item = _this.state.items[key];
           return (
             <div>
               <PopulateAtCheckboxes this={this}
                 checked={item.populate_at} id={key}
                   populate_at={data.populate_at} />
            </div>
            );
        }, this)}
        <button onClick={this.newFieldEntry}>Create a new field</button>
        <button onClick={this.saveAndContinue}>Save and Continue</button>
      </div>
    );
  }

I want to update the state when the user changes any value, but I'm having trouble locating the correct object:

var PopulateAtCheckboxes = React.createClass({
  handleChange: function (e) {
     item = this.state.items[1];
     item.name = 'newName';
     items[1] = item;
     this.setState({items: items});
  },
  render: function() {
    var populateAtCheckbox = this.props.populate_at.map(function(value) {
      return (
        <label for={value}>
          <input type="radio" name={'populate_at' this.props.id} value={value}
            onChange={this.handleChange} checked={this.props.checked == value}
            ref="populate-at"/>
          {value}
        </label>
      );
    }, this);
    return (
      <div className="populate-at-checkboxes">
        {populateAtCheckbox}
      </div>
    );
  }
});

How should I make this.setState so that it updates items[1].name?

Answer 1

You can achieve this by using the update immutability helper :

this.setState({
  items: update(this.state.items, {1: {name: {$set: 'updated field name'}}})
})

Alternatively, if you don't care about being able to detect changes to this using === in the shouldComponentUpdate() lifecycle method, you can edit the state directly and force the component to re- Rendering - This is actually the same as @limelights' answer in that it pulls the object out of state and edits it.

this.state.items[1].name = 'updated field name'
this.forceUpdate()

---

Later editing added:

Check out the lessons in Simple Component Communication react-training for an example of how to pass a callback function from a parent component that holds state to a child component that needs to trigger a state change.

Answer 2

Here's how to do it without the helper library:

handleChange: function (e) {
    // 1. Make a shallow copy of the items
    let items = [...this.state.items];
    // 2. Make a shallow copy of the item you want to mutate
    let item = {...items[1]};
    // 3. Replace the property you're intested in
    item.name = 'newName';
    // 4. Put it back into our array. N.B. we *are* mutating the array here, 
    //    but that's why we made a copy first
    items[1] = item;
    // 5. Set the state to our new copy
    this.setState({items});
},

If desired, you can combine steps 2 and 3:

let item = {
    ...items[1],
    name: 'newName'
}

Or you can do the whole thing in one line:

this.setState(({items}) => ({
    items: [
        ...items.slice(0,1),
        {
            ...items[1],
            name: 'newName',
        },
        ...items.slice(2)
    ]
}));

Note: I created items as an array. OP used an object. However, the concept is the same.

---

You can see what's happening in the terminal/console:

❯ node
> items = [{name:'foo'},{name:'bar'},{name:'baz'}]
[ { name: 'foo' }, { name: 'bar' }, { name: 'baz' } ]
> clone = [...items]
[ { name: 'foo' }, { name: 'bar' }, { name: 'baz' } ]
> item1 = {...clone[1]}
{ name: 'bar' }
> item1.name = 'bacon'
'bacon'
> clone[1] = item1
{ name: 'bacon' }
> clone
[ { name: 'foo' }, { name: 'bacon' }, { name: 'baz' } ]
> items
[ { name: 'foo' }, { name: 'bar' }, { name: 'baz' } ] // good! we didn't mutate `items`
> items === clone
false // these are different objects
> items[0] === clone[0]
true // we don't need to clone items 0 and 2 because we're not mutating them (efficiency gains!)
> items[1] === clone[1]
false // this guy we copied