Proper way to use react-hook-form Controller with Material-UI Autocomplete

Question

I am trying to use a custom Material-UI Autocomplete component and connect it to react-hook-form.

TLDR: Need to use MUI Autocomplete with react-hook-form Controller without defaultValue

My custom Autocomplete component takes an object with the structure {_id:'', name: ''} it displays the name and returns the _id when an option is selected. The Autocomplete works just fine.

<Autocomplete
  options={options}
  getOptionLabel={option => option.name}
  getOptionSelected={(option, value) => option._id === value._id}
  onChange={(event, newValue, reason) => {
    handler(name, reason === 'clear' ? null : newValue._id);
  }}
  renderInput={params => <TextField {...params} {...inputProps} />}
/>

In order to make it work with react-hook-form I've set the setValues to be the handler for onChange in the Autocomplete and manually register the component in an useEffect as follows

useEffect(() => {
  register({ name: "country1" });
},[]);

This works fine but I would like to not have the useEffect hook and just make use of the register somehow directly.

Next I tried to use the Controller component from react-hook-form to proper register the field in the form and not to use the useEffect hook

<Controller
  name="country2"
  as={
    <Autocomplete
      options={options}
      getOptionLabel={option => option.name}
      getOptionSelected={(option, value) => option._id === value._id}
      onChange={(event, newValue, reason) =>
        reason === "clear" ? null : newValue._id
      }
      renderInput={params => (
        <TextField {...params} label="Country" />
      )}
    />
  }
  control={control}
/>

I've changed the onChange in the Autocomplete component to return the value directly but it doesn't seem to work.

Using inputRef={register} on the <TextField/> would not cut it for me because I want to save the _id and not the name

HERE is a working sandbox with the two cases. The first with useEffect and setValue in the Autocomplete that works. The second my attempt in using Controller component

Any help is appreciated.

LE

After the comment from Bill with the working sandbox of MUI Autocomplete, I Managed to get a functional result

<Controller
  name="country"
  as={
    <Autocomplete
      options={options}
      getOptionLabel={option => option.name}
      getOptionSelected={(option, value) => option._id === value._id}
      renderInput={params => <TextField {...params} label="Country" />}
    />
  }
  onChange={([, { _id }]) => _id}
  control={control}
/>

The only problem is that I get an MUI Error in the console

Material-UI: A component is changing the uncontrolled value state of Autocomplete to be controlled.

I've tried to set an defaultValue for it but it still behaves like that. Also I would not want to set a default value from the options array due to the fact that these fields in the form are not required.

The updated sandbox HERE

Any help is still very much appreciated

Answer 1

The accepted answer (probably) works for the bugged version of Autocomplete. I think the bug was fixed some time after that, so that the solution can be slightly simplified.

This is very useful reference/codesandbox when working with react-hook-form and material-ui: https://codesandbox.io/s/react-hook-form-controller-601-j2df5?

From the above link, I modified the Autocomplete example:

import TextField from '@material-ui/core/TextField';
import Autocomplete from '@material-ui/lab/Autocomplete';


const ControlledAutocomplete = ({ options = [], renderInput, getOptionLabel, onChange: ignored, control, defaultValue, name, renderOption }) => {
  return (
    <Controller
      render={({ onChange, ...props }) => (
        <Autocomplete
          options={options}
          getOptionLabel={getOptionLabel}
          renderOption={renderOption}
          renderInput={renderInput}
          onChange={(e, data) => onChange(data)}
          {...props}
        />
      )}
      onChange={([, data]) => data}
      defaultValue={defaultValue}
      name={name}
      control={control}
    />
  );
}

With the usage:

<ControlledAutocomplete
    control={control}
    name="inputName"
    options={[{ name: 'test' }]}
    getOptionLabel={(option) => `Option: ${option.name}`}
    renderInput={(params) => <TextField {...params} label="My label" margin="normal" />}
    defaultValue={null}
/>

control is from the return value of useForm(}

Note that I'm passing null as defaultValue as in my case this input is not required. If you'll leave defaultValue you might get some errors from material-ui library.

UPDATE:

Per Steve question in the comments, this is how I'm rendering the input, so that it checks for errors:

renderInput={(params) => (
                  <TextField
                    {...params}
                    label="Field Label"
                    margin="normal"
                    error={errors[fieldName]}
                  />
                )}

Where errors is an object from react-hook-form's formMethods:

const { control, watch, errors, handleSubmit } = formMethods