How to use the useState hook with asynchronous calls to change an array?

Question

I'm trying to update an array from a put request

const [descriptors, setDescriptors] = useState([]);

const handleDescriptorUpdate = (id, descriptorData) => {
    services
      .putDescriptor(id, descriptorData)
      .then((response) => {
        const descriptorIndex = _.findIndex(descriptors, (e) => e.id === id);
        if (descriptorIndex !== -1) {
          const tempDescriptors = [...descriptors];
          tempDescriptors[descriptorIndex] = response.data;
          setDescriptors(tempDescriptors);
        }
      })
      .catch((error) => {
        console.error(error);
      });
  };

This works fine when I perform only 1 request at the time, but when I click the button that performs the update twice the promises, instead of spreading the array and updating the old value with the new one, both of them are spreading the same array causing that when the second promise is resolved, it updates the state with the new value (second value) that came back from the server BUT changing the first value (the one changed by the first promise) for its original value.

Descriptors are initially filled with an array of objects (from a get request):

[
  {
    "id": 24,
    "name": "Test 4.1",
    "percentage": 0,
    "towerId": "5cfc9200-c04a-11e9-89c0-2dd5d3707b1b"
  },
  {
    "id": 23,
    "name": "Test 3.1",
    "percentage": 0,
    "towerId": "5cfc9200-c04a-11e9-89c0-2dd5d3707b1b"
  }
]

Answer 1

I saw you let descriptors as a state instead of a reference, as I said in my comment above useState doesn't reflect changes immediately so keep on memory one reference of your array, you can do it with the hook useRef, see the next example:

const [descriptors, setDescriptors] = useState([]);

const descriptorsReference = useRef(null);

const handleDescriptorUpdate = (id, descriptorData) => {
    services
      .putDescriptor(id, descriptorData)
      .then((response) => {
        const descriptorIndex = _.findIndex(descriptors, (e) => e.id === id);
        if (descriptorIndex !== -1) {
         // Use descriptorsReference instead
          const tempDescriptors = [...descriptorsReference.current];
          tempDescriptors[descriptorIndex] = response.data;
          // Next line is to update the descriptors into descriptors state, this phase doesn't happen immediately 'cause is asynchronous 
          setDescriptors(tempDescriptors);
          // Next line is to update the descriptors in memory, this phase occurs immediately 
          descriptorsReference.current = tempDescriptors
        }
      })
      .catch((error) => {
        console.error(error);
      });
  };

Answer 2

Even though React batches all setStates done during an event handler.

setDescriptors is outside the scope of the event handler for it's only called when promise is resolved.

Thus, you would need to make use of a state callback to properly manage descriptor versions.

.then((response) => {
  setDescriptors((descriptors) => ( // use state callback
    descriptors.map((desc) =>
      desc.id === id ? { ...desc, ...response.data } : desc
    ) 
  })
}