React: how to update state.item[1] in state using setState?

I'm creating an app where the user can design his own form. E.g. specify name of the field and details of which other columns that should be included.

The component is available as a JSFiddle here.

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 of the values, but I'm having a hard time to target 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 craft this.setState to get it to update items[1].name ?

Since there's a lot of misinformation in this thread, here's how you can do it without helper libs:

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});
},

You can combine steps 2 and 3 if you want:

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 made items an array. OP used an object. However, the concepts are the same.

---

You can see what's going on in your 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

You could use the update immutability helper for this:

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

Or if you don't care about being able to detect changes to this item in a shouldComponentUpdate() lifecycle method using ===, you could edit the state directly and force the component to re-render - this is effectively the same as @limelights' answer, as it's pulling an object out of state and editing it.

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

---

Post-edit addition:

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

Wrong way!

handleChange = (e) => {
	const { items } = this.state;
	items[1].name = e.target.value;

	// update state
	this.setState({
		items,
	});
};

As pointed out by a lot of better developers in the comments: mutating the state is wrong!

Took me a while to figure this out. Above works but it takes away the power of React. For example componentDidUpdate will not see this as an update because it's modified directly.

So the right way would be:

handleChange = (e) => {
    this.setState(prevState => ({
		items: {
			...prevState.items,
			[prevState.items[1].name]: e.target.value,
		},
	}));
};

To modify deeply nested objects/variables in React's state, typically three methods are used: vanilla JavaScript's Object.assign, immutability-helper and cloneDeep from Lodash.

There are also plenty of other less popular third-party libs to achieve this, but in this answer, I'll cover just these three options. Also, some additional vanilla JavaScript methods exist, like array spreading, (see @mpen's answer for example), but they are not very intuitive, easy to use and capable to handle all state manipulation situations.

As was pointed innumerable times in top voted comments to the answers, whose authors propose a direct mutation of state: just don't do that. This is a ubiquitous React anti-pattern, which will inevitably lead to unwanted consequences. Learn the right way.

Let's compare three widely used methods.

Given this state object structure:

state = {
    outer: {
        inner: 'initial value'
    }
}

You can use the following methods to update the inner-most inner field's value without affecting the rest of the state.

1. Vanilla JavaScript's Object.assign

const App = () => {
  const [outer, setOuter] = React.useState({ inner: 'initial value' })

  React.useEffect(() => {
    console.log('Before the shallow copying:', outer.inner) // initial value
    const newOuter = Object.assign({}, outer, { inner: 'updated value' })
    console.log('After the shallow copy is taken, the value in the state is still:', outer.inner) // initial value
    setOuter(newOuter)
  }, [])

  console.log('In render:', outer.inner)

  return (
    <section>Inner property: <i>{outer.inner}</i></section>
  )
}

ReactDOM.render(
  <App />,
  document.getElementById('react')
)

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react/16.10.2/umd/react.production.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react-dom/16.10.2/umd/react-dom.production.min.js"></script>

<main id="react"></main>

Keep in mind, that Object.assign will not perform a deep cloning, since it only copies property values, and that's why what it does is called a shallow copying (see comments).

For this to work, we should only manipulate the properties of primitive types (outer.inner), that is strings, numbers, booleans.

In this example, we're creating a new constant (const newOuter...), using Object.assign, which creates an empty object ({}), copies outer object ({ inner: 'initial value' }) into it and then copies a different object { inner: 'updated value' } over it.

This way, in the end the newly created newOuter constant will hold a value of { inner: 'updated value' } since the inner property got overridden. This newOuter is a brand new object, which is not linked to the object in state, so it can be mutated as needed and the state will stay the same and not changed until the command to update it is ran.

The last part is to use setOuter() setter to replace the original outer in the state with a newly created newOuter object (only the value will change, the property name outer will not).

Now imagine we have a more deep state like state = { outer: { inner: { innerMost: 'initial value' } } }. We could try to create the newOuter object and populate it with the outer contents from the state, but Object.assign will not be able to copy innerMost's value to this newly created newOuter object since innerMost is nested too deeply.

You could still copy inner, like in the example above, but since it's now an object and not a primitive, the reference from newOuter.inner will be copied to the outer.inner instead, which means that we will end up with local newOuter object directly tied to the object in the state.

That means that in this case mutations of the locally created newOuter.inner will directly affect the outer.inner object (in state), since they are in fact became the same thing (in computer's memory).

Object.assign therefore will only work if you have a relatively simple one level deep state structure with innermost members holding values of the primitive type.

If you have deeper objects (2nd level or more), which you should update, don't use Object.assign. You risk mutating state directly.

2. Lodash's cloneDeep

const App = () => {
  const [outer, setOuter] = React.useState({ inner: 'initial value' })

  React.useEffect(() => {
    console.log('Before the deep cloning:', outer.inner) // initial value
    const newOuter = _.cloneDeep(outer) // cloneDeep() is coming from the Lodash lib
    newOuter.inner = 'updated value'
    console.log('After the deeply cloned object is modified, the value in the state is still:', outer.inner) // initial value
    setOuter(newOuter)
  }, [])

  console.log('In render:', outer.inner)

  return (
    <section>Inner property: <i>{outer.inner}</i></section>
  )
}

ReactDOM.render(
  <App />,
  document.getElementById('react')
)

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react/16.10.2/umd/react.production.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react-dom/16.10.2/umd/react-dom.production.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/lodash.js/4.17.15/lodash.min.js"></script>

<main id="react"></main>

Lodash's cloneDeep is way more simple to use. It performs a deep cloning, so it is a robust option, if you have a fairly complex state with multi-level objects or arrays inside. Just cloneDeep() the top-level state property, mutate the cloned part in whatever way you please, and setOuter() it back to the state.

3. immutability-helper

const App = () => {
  const [outer, setOuter] = React.useState({ inner: 'initial value' })
  
  React.useEffect(() => {
    const update = immutabilityHelper
    console.log('Before the deep cloning and updating:', outer.inner) // initial value
    const newOuter = update(outer, { inner: { $set: 'updated value' } })
    console.log('After the cloning and updating, the value in the state is still:', outer.inner) // initial value
    setOuter(newOuter)
  }, [])

  console.log('In render:', outer.inner)

  return (
    <section>Inner property: <i>{outer.inner}</i></section>
  )
}

ReactDOM.render(
  <App />,
  document.getElementById('react')
)

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react/16.10.2/umd/react.production.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react-dom/16.10.2/umd/react-dom.production.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://wzrd.in/standalone/[email protected]"></script>

<main id="react"></main>

immutability-helper takes it to a whole new level, and the cool thing about it is that it can not only $set values to state items, but also $push, $splice, $merge (etc.) them. Here is a list of commands available.

Side notes

Again, keep in mind, that setOuter only modifies the first-level properties of the state object (outer in these examples), not the deeply nested (outer.inner). If it behaved in a different way, this question wouldn't exist.

Which one is right for your project?

If you don't want or can't use external dependencies, and have a simple state structure, stick to Object.assign.

If you manipulate a huge and/or complex state, Lodash's cloneDeep is a wise choice.

If you need advanced capabilities, i.e. if your state structure is complex and you need to perform all kinds of operations on it, try immutability-helper, it's a very advanced tool which can be used for state manipulation.

...or, do you really need to do this at all?

If you hold a complex data in React's state, maybe this is a good time to think about other ways of handling it. Setting a complex state objects right in React components is not a straightforward operation, and I strongly suggest to think about different approaches.

Most likely you better be off keeping your complex data in a Redux store, setting it there using reducers and/or sagas and access it using selectors.

I had the same problem. Here's a simple solution that works !

const newItems = [...this.state.items];
newItems[item] = value;
this.setState({ items:newItems });

According to the React documentation on setState, using Object.assign as suggested by other answers here is not ideal. Due to the nature of setState's asynchronous behavior, subsequent calls using this technique may override previous calls causing undesirable outcomes.

Instead, the React docs recommend to use the updater form of setState which operates on the previous state. Keep in mind that when updating an array or object you must return a new array or object as React requires us to preserve state immutability. Using ES6 syntax's spread operator to shallow copy an array, creating or updating a property of an object at a given index of the array would look like this:

this.setState(prevState => {
    const newItems = [...prevState.items];
    newItems[index].name = newName;
    return {items: newItems};
})

First get the item you want, change what you want on that object and set it back on the state. The way you're using state by only passing an object in getInitialState would be way easier if you'd use a keyed object.

handleChange: function (e) {
   item = this.state.items[1];
   item.name = 'newName';
   items[1] = item;

   this.setState({items: items});
}

Don't mutate the state in place. It can cause unexpected results. I have learned my lesson! Always work with a copy/clone, Object.assign() is a good one:

item = Object.assign({}, this.state.items[1], {name: 'newName'});
items[1] = item;
this.setState({items: items});

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Object/assign

Use array map with arrow function, in one line

this.setState({
    items: this.state.items.map((item, index) =>
      index === 1 ? { ...item, name: 'newName' } : item,
   )
})

As none of the above options was ideal to me I ended up using map:

this.setState({items: this.state.items.map((item,idx)=> idx!==1 ?item :{...item,name:'new_name'}) })

Sometimes in React, mutating the cloned array can affect the original one, this method will never cause mutation:

    const myNewArray = Object.assign([...myArray], {
        [index]: myNewItem
    });
    setState({ myArray: myNewArray });

Or if you just want to update a property of an item:

    const myNewArray = Object.assign([...myArray], {
        [index]: {
            ...myArray[index],
            prop: myNewValue
        }
    });
    setState({ myArray: myNewArray });

Mutation free:

// given a state
state = {items: [{name: 'Fred', value: 1}, {name: 'Wilma', value: 2}]}

// This will work without mutation as it clones the modified item in the map:
this.state.items
   .map(item => item.name === 'Fred' ? {...item, ...{value: 3}} : item)

this.setState(newItems)

It's really simple.

First pull the entire items object from state, updated the part of the items object as desired, and put the entire items object back in state via setState.

handleChange: function (e) {
  items = Object.assign(this.state.items); // Pull the entire items object out. Using object.assign is a good idea for objects.
  items[1].name = 'newName'; // update the items object as needed
  this.setState({ items }); // Put back in state
}

Found this surprisingly hard and none of the ES6 spread magic seemed to work as expected. Was using a structure like this to get rendered element properties for layout purposes.

found using the update method from immutability-helper to be the most straight forward one in this simplified example:

constructor(props) {
    super(props)
    this.state = { values: [] }
    this.updateContainerState = this.updateContainerState.bind(this)
  }

updateContainerState(index, value) {
    this.setState((state) => update(state, { values: { [index]: { $set: value } } }))
  }

as adapted from https://github.com/kolodny/immutability-helper#computed-property-names

of the to be updated array member is a more nested complex object use the appropriate deep copy method based on complexity.

There are surely better ways to handle layout parameters, but this is about how to handle arrays. The relevant values for each child element could also be computed outside of them, but I found it more convenient to pass containerState down, so they childs can fetch properties at will and Update the parent state array at their given index.

import React from 'react'
import update from 'immutability-helper'
import { ContainerElement } from './container.component.style.js'
import ChildComponent from './child-component'
export default class ContainerComponent extends React.Component {
  constructor(props) {
    super(props)
    this.state = { values: [] }
    this.updateContainerState = this.updateContainerState.bind(this)
  }

  updateContainerState(index, value) {
    this.setState((state) => update(state, { values: { [index]: { $set: value } } }))
  }

  // ...

  render() {
    let index = 0
    return (
      <ContainerElement>
      <ChildComponent
        index={index++}
        containerState={this.state}
        updateContainerState={this.updateContainerState}
      />
      <ChildComponent
        index={index++}
        containerState={this.state}
        updateContainerState={this.updateContainerState}
      />
      </ContainerElement>
    )
  }
}

Use the event on handleChange to figure out the element that has changed and then update it. For that you might need to change some property to identify it and update it.

See fiddle https://jsfiddle.net/69z2wepo/6164/

How about creating another component(for object that needs to go into the array) and pass the following as props?

1. component index - index will be used to create/update in array.
2. set function - This function put data into the array based on the component index.

<SubObjectForm setData={this.setSubObjectData}                                                            objectIndex={index}/>

Here {index} can be passed in based on position where this SubObjectForm is used.

and setSubObjectData can be something like this.

 setSubObjectData: function(index, data){
      var arrayFromParentObject= <retrieve from props or state>;
      var objectInArray= arrayFromParentObject.array[index];
      arrayFromParentObject.array[index] = Object.assign(objectInArray, data);
 }

In SubObjectForm, this.props.setData can be called on data change as given below.

<input type="text" name="name" onChange={(e) => this.props.setData(this.props.objectIndex,{name: e.target.value})}/>

I would move the function handle change and add an index parameter

handleChange: function (index) {
	var items = this.state.items;
	items[index].name = 'newName';
	this.setState({items: items});
},

to the Dynamic form component and pass it to the PopulateAtCheckboxes component as a prop. As you loop over your items you can include an additional counter (called index in the code below) to be passed along to the handle change as shown below

{ Object.keys(this.state.items).map(function (key, index) {
var item = _this.state.items[key];
var boundHandleChange = _this.handleChange.bind(_this, index);
  return (
	<div>
		<PopulateAtCheckboxes this={this}
			checked={item.populate_at} id={key} 
			handleChange={boundHandleChange}
	        populate_at={data.populate_at} />
	</div>
);
}, this)}

Finally you can call your change listener as shown below here

<input type="radio" name={'populate_at'+this.props.id} value={value} onChange={this.props.handleChange} checked={this.props.checked == value} ref="populate-at"/>

If you need to change only part of the Array, You've a react component with state set to.

state = {items: [{name: 'red-one', value: 100}, {name: 'green-one', value: 999}]}

It's best to update the red-one in the Array as follows:

const itemIndex = this.state.items.findIndex(i=> i.name === 'red-one');
const newItems = [
   this.state.items.slice(0, itemIndex),
   {name: 'red-one', value: 666},
   this.state.items.slice(itemIndex)
]

this.setState(newItems)

or if you have a dynamically generated list and you don't know the index but just have the key or id:

let ItemsCopy = []
let x = this.state.Items.map((entry) =>{
   
    if(entry.id == 'theIDYoureLookingFor')
    {
        entry.PropertyToChange = 'NewProperty'
    }

    ItemsCopy.push(entry)
})


this.setState({Items:ItemsCopy});

Try with code:

this.state.items[1] = 'new value';
var cloneObj = Object.assign({}, this.state.items);

this.setState({items: cloneObj });

Following piece of code went easy on my dull brain. Removing the object and replacing with the updated one

    var udpateditem = this.state.items.find(function(item) { 
                   return item.name == "field_1" });
    udpateditem.name= "New updated name"                       
    this.setState(prevState => ({                                   
    items:prevState.dl_name_template.filter(function(item) { 
                                    return item.name !== "field_1"}).concat(udpateditem)
    }));

this.setState({
      items: this.state.items.map((item,index) => {
        if (index === 1) {
          item.name = 'newName';
        }
        return item;
      })
    });

@JonnyBuchanan's answer works perfectly, but for only array state variable. In case the state variable is just a single dictionary, follow this:

inputChange = input => e => {
    this.setState({
        item: update(this.state.item, {[input]: {$set: e.target.value}})
    })
}

You can replace [input] by the field name of your dictionary and e.target.value by its value. This code performs the update job on input change event of my form.

 handleChanges = (value, key) => {
     // clone the current State object
    let cloneObject = _.extend({}, this.state.currentAttribute);
    // key as user.name and value= "ABC" then current attributes have current properties as we changes
    currentAttribute[key] = value;
    // then set the state "currentAttribute" is key and "cloneObject" is changed object.  
    this.setState({currentAttribute: cloneObject});

and Change from Text box add onChange event

onChange = {
   (event) => {                                                
      this.handleChanges(event.target.value, "title");
   }
}

Try this it will definetly work,other case i tried but didn't work

import _ from 'lodash';

this.state.var_name  = _.assign(this.state.var_name, {
   obj_prop: 'changed_value',
});