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

Question

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 ?

Answer 1

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