React Hooks and useEffect – best practices and server issues - react-native

I am using React Native with functional components. componentDidMount() etc. are not available in functional components, instead I use Hooks. But Hooks don't act like lifecycle methods. I am wondering what the best practices are.
Assumed that we have a function like this one:
const ABCScreen = () => {
const [someHook, setSomeHook] = useState<any>()
useEffect(() => {
// some code inside this function which is called on every component update
}, [])
server.asyncCall().then(data => {
setSomeHook(data)
})
return (<View>
{someHook ? (<Text> `someHook` was assigned </Text>) : (<Text> `someHook` was not assigned, display some ActivityIndicator instead</Text>)}
</View>)
}
Where to place server.asyncCall()? Inside or outside of useEffect?

I think you have a misunderstanding here. The convention is that all the fetching data is going to be placed inside the componentDidMount lifecycle method. React useEffect hook can replace this easily by placing an empty array of dependencies, which means you can place that call inside the useEffect you already have.
Unlike you mention in your code comment, this hook won't be triggered on each component update. It will be only be triggered once the component is being mounted. So, you should be able to do it as follows:
const ABCScreen = () => {
const [someHook, setSomeHook] = useState<any>()
useEffect(() => {
server.asyncCall().then(setSomeHook)
}, [])//only triggered when component is mounted.
In the future, you might want to check the rules of the hooks.

Related

ReactNative UI freezing for a second before rendering a component with a fetch in useEffect()

TL;DR: My UI freezes for .5-1s when I try to render a component that does a API fetch within a useEffect().
I have ComponentX which is a component that fetches data from an API in a useEffect() via a redux dispatch. I'm using RTK to build my redux store.
function ComponentX() {
const dispatch = useAppDispatch();
useEffect(() => {
dispatch(fetchListData()); // fetch list data is a redux thunk.
}, [dispatch]);
...
return <FlatList data={data} /> // pseudo code
}
as you can see the fetch will happen everytime the component is rendered.
Now I have ComponentX in App along with another component called ComponentY.
Here's a rudamentary implementation on how my app determines which component to show. Pretend each component has a button that executes the onClick
function App() {
const [componentToRender, setComponentToRender] = useState("x");
if (componentToRender === "x") {
return <ComponentX onClick={() => setComponentToRender("y")}/>
} else {
return <ComponentY onClick={() => setComponentToRender("x")}/>
}
}
Now the issue happens when I try to move from ComponentY to ComponentX. When I click the "back" button on ComponentY the UI will freeze for .5-1s then show ComponentX. Removing the dispatch(fetchListData()); from the useEffect fixes the issue but obviously I can't do that since I need the data from the API.
Another fascinating thing is that I tried wrapping the dispatch in an if statement assuming that it would prevent a data fetch thus resolving the "lag" when shouldReload is false. The UI still froze before rendering ComponentX.
useEffect(() => {
if (shouldReload) { // assume this is false
console.log("reloading");
dispatch(fetchListData());
}
}, [dispatch, shouldReload]);
Any idea what's going on here?
EDIT:
I've done a little more pruning of code trying to simplify things. What I found that removing redux from the equation fixes the issue. By simply doing below, the lag disappears. This leads me to believe it has something to do with Redux/RTK.
const [listData, setListData] = useState([]);
useEffect(() => {
getListData().then(setListData)
}, []);
Sometimes running the code after interactions/animations completed solves the issue.
useEffect(() => {
InteractionManager.runAfterInteractions(() => {
dispatch(fetchListData());
});
}, [dispatch]);

How to create an rxjs Observable from TextInput (either onChange or onTextChange)

I want to create an observable from a change event that gets fired on a React Native TextInput component. TextInput comes with 2 change props that I'm aware of (onChangeText and onChange). From what I gather, you need to use onChange if you want access to the native event you need to use onChange.
I don't know much about the native event object. I am trying to create an rxjs observable using fromEvent.
First I created a ref in my functional component like this:
const sqftRef = useRef().current
Then I attached this ref to the TextInput component like this:
<TextInput
ref={sqftRef} // attach a ref
label='Sqft'
mode='flat'
textContentType='none'
autoCapitalize='none'
keyboardType='numeric'
autoCorrect={false}
value={String(formValues.sqft)}
dense
underlineColor={colors.colorOffWhite}
onChangeText={(text) => setText(text)}
onChange={e => {
// somehow create an observable from this event ???
}}
style={styles.inputStyles}
theme={inputTheme}
/>
I tried to create an Observable using fromEvent like this but it doesn't work. I get undefined is not an object (evaluating target.addEventListener):
fromEvent(sqftRef, 'onChange').subscribe(value => console.log(value))
I know my approach is all wrong. Hoping someone can point me in the correct direction.
I would emit events you need into a subject, then subscribe to the subject in other parts of your code.
Here's a simple React example that should get you started
function App() {
const textChange = new Subject<string>();
useEffect(() => {
// subscribe to
const subscription = textChange.asObservable().subscribe(console.log)
return () => subscription.unsubscribe()
}, [])
// Emit events with a subject
return <textarea onChange={(e) => {
textChange.next(e.target.value)
}}>
</textarea>
}
render(<App />, document.getElementById('root'));
Check out the example here: https://stackblitz.com/edit/react-ts-akoyfv
I think the problem is with assigning the current directly to the sqftRef. Try to define it without current, but use current when creating the Observable, like the following:
const sqftRef = useRef();
Then create the Observable within useEffect to make sure that the DOM is ready:
useEffect(() => {
fromEvent(sqftRef.current, 'onChange').subscribe((value) =>
console.log(value)
);
});
OK, I was able to figure it out with the help of Amer Yousuf and Alex Fallenstedt.
I did something similar to what Alex suggested, modifying his solution for React Native. One reason his solution wasn't working for me is that it is important to use the useRef hook to prevent the Observable from being re-created on each render. If the observable is recreated (on a re-render) and useEffect doesn't run again, then we won't have an active subscription to the newly (re-created) observable (useEffect never runs again). That's why my call to sqft$.next was originally only being called once (the first time until we re-render).
My solution looks like this:
let sqft$ = useRef(new BehaviorSubject(0)).current
useEffect(() => {
const sub = sqft$.subscribe({
next: (val) => {
// just testing stuff out here
updateForm('sqft', val)
updateForm('lot', val * 2)
}
})
// this is only relevant to my use case
if (activeReport) sqft$.next(activeReport.sqft)
return () => sub.unsubscribe()
}, [activeReport])
and of course I call this in onChangeText:
onChangeText={(text) => {
sqft$.next(text)
}}
So this is working right now. I still feel like there may be a better way using onChange(e => ...stuff). I will leave this question open for a little bit in case anyone can break down how to do this using nativeEvent or explain to me how I can access an event off the TextInput component.

Reload a React Native class component

I have a class component directions in my project. I navigate to another component from it using this.props.navigation.navigate(). Now the problem is that I want to navigate back to the same directions component but with passing new values, ie I want it to reload from scratch, defining state variables once again. How can I do it?
Using navigation.navigate() simply takes me back to the previous state the screen has been.
this.props.navigation.navigate('direction',{
riderLocation:this.state.rideInfo.location,
ride_id:this.state.ride_id,
});
And this is the componentDidMount of directions.
componentDidMount(){
alert('componentDidMount');
const {navigation,route}=this.props;
this.state.riderLocation = navigation.getParam('riderLocation');
this.state.ride_id= navigation.getParam('ride_id');
}
In the "directions" component, use "componentDidMount" method.
Inside "componentDidMount" method, call a function which updates the state value as desired.
Once you are redirected back to the "directions" component, then "componentDidMount" will run and the state will be updated.
====
Edit:
Try using componentDidUpdate() method in "directions" component.
componentDidUpdate(prevProps, prevState) {
if (prevProps.navigation.getParam('ride_id') !== this.props.navigation.getParam('ride_id')) {
const {
navigation,
route
} = this.props;
this.setState({
riderLocation: navigation.getParam('riderLocation'),
ride_id: navigation.getParam('ride_id')
})
}
}
Also instead of "this.state.riderLocation" and "this.state.ride_id" use this.setState in componentDidMount(), just like I have written in componentDidUpdate().

how am I breaking rules of hook? [duplicate]

In this example, I have this react class:
class MyDiv extends React.component
constructor(){
this.state={sampleState:'hello world'}
}
render(){
return <div>{this.state.sampleState}
}
}
The question is if I can add React hooks to this. I understand that React-Hooks is alternative to React Class style. But if I wish to slowly migrate into React hooks, can I add useful hooks into Classes?
High order components are how we have been doing this type of thing until hooks came along. You can write a simple high order component wrapper for your hook.
function withMyHook(Component) {
return function WrappedComponent(props) {
const myHookValue = useMyHook();
return <Component {...props} myHookValue={myHookValue} />;
}
}
While this isn't truly using a hook directly from a class component, this will at least allow you to use the logic of your hook from a class component, without refactoring.
class MyComponent extends React.Component {
render(){
const myHookValue = this.props.myHookValue;
return <div>{myHookValue}</div>;
}
}
export default withMyHook(MyComponent);
Class components don't support hooks -
According to the Hooks-FAQ:
You can’t use Hooks inside of a class component, but you can definitely mix classes and function components with Hooks in a single tree. Whether a component is a class or a function that uses Hooks is an implementation detail of that component. In the longer term, we expect Hooks to be the primary way people write React components.
As other answers already explain, hooks API was designed to provide function components with functionality that currently is available only in class components. Hooks aren't supposed to used in class components.
Class components can be written to make easier a migration to function components.
With a single state:
class MyDiv extends Component {
state = {sampleState: 'hello world'};
render(){
const { state } = this;
const setState = state => this.setState(state);
return <div onClick={() => setState({sampleState: 1})}>{state.sampleState}</div>;
}
}
is converted to
const MyDiv = () => {
const [state, setState] = useState({sampleState: 'hello world'});
return <div onClick={() => setState({sampleState: 1})}>{state.sampleState}</div>;
}
Notice that useState state setter doesn't merge state properties automatically, this should be covered with setState(prevState => ({ ...prevState, foo: 1 }));
With multiple states:
class MyDiv extends Component {
state = {sampleState: 'hello world'};
render(){
const { sampleState } = this.state;
const setSampleState = sampleState => this.setState({ sampleState });
return <div onClick={() => setSampleState(1)}>{sampleState}</div>;
}
}
is converted to
const MyDiv = () => {
const [sampleState, setSampleState] = useState('hello world');
return <div onClick={() => setSampleState(1)}>{sampleState}</div>;
}
Complementing Joel Cox's good answer
Render Props also enable the usage of Hooks inside class components, if more flexibility is needed:
class MyDiv extends React.Component {
render() {
return (
<HookWrapper
// pass state/props from inside of MyDiv to Hook
someProp={42}
// process Hook return value
render={hookValue => <div>Hello World! {hookValue}</div>}
/>
);
}
}
function HookWrapper({ someProp, render }) {
const hookValue = useCustomHook(someProp);
return render(hookValue);
}
For side effect Hooks without return value:
function HookWrapper({ someProp }) {
useCustomHook(someProp);
return null;
}
// ... usage
<HookWrapper someProp={42} />
Source: React Training
you can achieve this by generic High order components
HOC
import React from 'react';
const withHook = (Component, useHook, hookName = 'hookvalue') => {
return function WrappedComponent(props) {
const hookValue = useHook();
return <Component {...props} {...{[hookName]: hookValue}} />;
};
};
export default withHook;
Usage
class MyComponent extends React.Component {
render(){
const myUseHookValue = this.props.myUseHookValue;
return <div>{myUseHookValue}</div>;
}
}
export default withHook(MyComponent, useHook, 'myUseHookValue');
Hooks are not meant to be used for classes but rather functions. If you wish to use hooks, you can start by writing new code as functional components with hooks
According to React FAQs
You can’t use Hooks inside of a class component, but you can
definitely mix classes and function components with Hooks in a single
tree. Whether a component is a class or a function that uses Hooks is
an implementation detail of that component. In the longer term, we
expect Hooks to be the primary way people write React components.
const MyDiv = () => {
const [sampleState, setState] = useState('hello world');
render(){
return <div>{sampleState}</div>
}
}
You can use the react-universal-hooks library. It lets you use the "useXXX" functions within the render function of class-components.
It's worked great for me so far. The only issue is that since it doesn't use the official hooks, the values don't show react-devtools.
To get around this, I created an equivalent by wrapping the hooks, and having them store their data (using object-mutation to prevent re-renders) on component.state.hookValues. (you can access the component by auto-wrapping the component render functions, to run set currentCompBeingRendered = this)
For more info on this issue (and details on the workaround), see here: https://github.com/salvoravida/react-universal-hooks/issues/7
Stateful components or containers or class-based components ever support the functions of React Hooks, so we don't need to React Hooks in Stateful components just in stateless components.
Some additional informations
What are React Hooks?
So what are hooks? Well hooks are a new way or offer us a new way of writing our components.
Thus far, of course we have functional and class-based components, right? Functional components receive props and you return some JSX code that should be rendered to the screen.
They are great for presentation, so for rendering the UI part, not so much about the business logic and they are typically focused on one or a few purposes per component.
Class-based components on the other hand also will receive props but they also have this internal state. Therefore class-based components are the components which actually hold the majority of our business logic, so with business logic, I mean things like we make an HTTP request and we need to handle the response and to change the internal state of the app or maybe even without HTTP. A user fills out the form and we want to show this somewhere on the screen, we need state for this, we need class-based components for this and therefore we also typically use class based components to orchestrate our other components and pass our state down as props to functional components for example.
Now one problem we have with this separation, with all the benefits it adds but one problem we have is that converting from one component form to the other is annoying. It's not really difficult but it is annoying.
If you ever found yourself in a situation where you needed to convert a functional component into a class-based one, it's a lot of typing and a lot of typing of always the same things, so it's annoying.
A bigger problem in quotation marks is that lifecycle hooks can be hard to use right.
Obviously, it's not hard to add componentDidMount and execute some code in there but knowing which lifecycle hook to use, when and how to use it correctly, that can be challenging especially in more complex applications and anyways, wouldn't it be nice if we had one way of creating components and that super component could then handle both state and side effects like HTTP requests and also render the user interface?
Well, this is exactly what hooks are all about. Hooks give us a new way of creating functional components and that is important.
React Hooks let you use react features and lifecycle without writing a class.
It's like the equivalent version of the class component with much smaller and readable form factor. You should migrate to React hooks because it's fun to write it.
But you can't write react hooks inside a class component, as it's introduced for functional component.
This can be easily converted to :
class MyDiv extends React.component
constructor(){
this.state={sampleState:'hello world'}
}
render(){
return <div>{this.state.sampleState}
}
}
const MyDiv = () => {
const [sampleState, setSampleState] = useState('hello world');
return <div>{sampleState}</div>
}
It won't be possible with your existing class components. You'll have to convert your class component into a functional component and then do something on the lines of -
function MyDiv() {
const [sampleState, setSampleState] = useState('hello world');
return (
<div>{sampleState}</div>
)
}
For me React.createRef() was helpful.
ex.:
constructor(props) {
super(props);
this.myRef = React.createRef();
}
...
<FunctionComponent ref={this.myRef} />
Origin post here.
I've made a library for this. React Hookable Component.
Usage is very simple. Replace extends Component or extends PureComponent with extends HookableComponent or extends HookablePureComponent. You can then use hooks in the render() method.
import { HookableComponent } from 'react-hookable-component';
// 👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇
class ComponentThatUsesHook extends HookableComponent<Props, State> {
render() {
// 👇👇👇👇👇👇
const value = useSomeHook();
return <span>The value is {value}</span>;
}
}
if you didn't need to change your class component then create another functional component and do hook stuff and import it to class component
Doesn't work anymore in modern React Versions. Took me forever, but finally resulted going back to go ol' callbacks. Only thing that worked for me, all other's threw the know React Hook Call (outside functional component) error.
Non-React or React Context:
class WhateverClass {
private xyzHook: (XyzHookContextI) | undefined
public setHookAccessor (xyzHook: XyzHookContextI): void {
this.xyzHook = xyzHook
}
executeHook (): void {
const hookResult = this.xyzHook?.specificHookFunction()
...
}
}
export const Whatever = new WhateverClass() // singleton
Your hook (or your wrapper for an external Hook)
export interface XyzHookContextI {
specificHookFunction: () => Promise<string>
}
const XyzHookContext = createContext<XyzHookContextI>(undefined as any)
export function useXyzHook (): XyzHookContextI {
return useContext(XyzHookContextI)
}
export function XyzHook (props: PropsWithChildren<{}>): JSX.Element | null {
async function specificHookFunction (): Promise<void> {
...
}
const context: XyzHookContextI = {
specificHookFunction
}
// and here comes the magic in wiring that hook up with the non function component context via callback
Whatever.setHookAccessor(context)
return (
< XyzHookContext.Provider value={context}>
{props.children}
</XyzHookContext.Provider>
)
}
Voila, now you can use ANY react code (via hook) from any other context (class components, vanilla-js, …)!
(…hope I didn't make to many name change mistakes :P)
Yes, but not directly.
Try react-iifc, more details in its readme.
https://github.com/EnixCoda/react-iifc
Try with-component-hooks:
https://github.com/bplok20010/with-component-hooks
import withComponentHooks from 'with-component-hooks';
class MyComponent extends React.Component {
render(){
const props = this.props;
const [counter, set] = React.useState(0);
//TODO...
}
}
export default withComponentHooks(MyComponent)
2.Try react-iifc: https://github.com/EnixCoda/react-iifc

When should you use render and shallow in Enzyme / React tests?

prior to posting this question, I tried to search in sqa stackexchange but I found no post about shallow and render there, so I hope someone can help me out here.
When should I use shallow and render in testing react components?
Based on the airbnb docs, I've made some opinions on the difference of the two:
Since shallow is testing components as a unit, so it should be used for 'parent' components. (ex. Tables, Wrappers, etc.)
Render is for child components.
The reason I asked this question, is that I'm having a hard time to figure out which one I should use (though the docs say that they're very similar)
So, how do I know which one to use in a specific scenario?
As per the Enzyme docs:
mount(<Component />) for Full DOM rendering is ideal for use cases where you have components that may interact with DOM apis, or may require the full lifecycle in order to fully test the component (ie, componentDidMount etc.)
vs.
shallow(<Component />) for Shallow rendering is useful to constrain yourself to testing a component as a unit, and to ensure that your tests aren't indirectly asserting on behavior of child components.
vs.
render which is used to render react components to static HTML and analyze the resulting HTML structure.
You can still see the underlying "nodes" in a shallow render, so for example, you can do something like this (slightly contrived) example using AVA as the spec runner:
let wrapper = shallow(<TagBox />);
const props = {
toggleValue: sinon.spy()
};
test('it should render two top level nodes', t => {
t.is(wrapper.children().length, 2);
});
test('it should safely set all props and still render two nodes', t => {
wrapper.setProps({...props});
t.is(wrapper.children().length, 2);
});
test('it should call toggleValue when an x class is clicked', t => {
wrapper.setProps({...props});
wrapper.find('.x').last().simulate('click');
t.true(props.toggleValue.calledWith(3));
});
Notice that rendering, setting props and finding selectors and even synthetic events are all supported by shallow rendering, so most times you can just use that.
But, you won't be able to get the full lifecycle of the component, so if you expect things to happen in componentDidMount, you should use mount(<Component />);
This test uses Sinon to spy on the component's componentDidMount
test.only('mount calls componentDidMount', t => {
class Test extends Component {
constructor (props) {
super(props);
}
componentDidMount() {
console.log('componentDidMount!');
}
render () {
return (
<div />
);
}
};
const componentDidMount = sinon.spy(Test.prototype, 'componentDidMount');
const wrapper = mount(<Test />);
t.true(componentDidMount.calledOnce);
componentDidMount.restore();
});
The above will not pass with shallow rendering or render
render will provide you with the html only, so you can still do stuff like this:
test.only('render works', t => {
// insert Test component here...
const rendered = render(<Test />);
const len = rendered.find('div').length;
t.is(len, 1);
});
The difference between shallow() and mount() is that 
shallow() tests components in isolation from the child components they render while mount()goes deeper and tests a component's children.
For shallow() this means that if the parent component renders another component that fails to render, then a shallow() rendering on the parent will still pass.