React Form Hook with Autocomplete Material UI

Question

I have a countries array which contains id and name. Currently I am using a Material UI Autocomplete element and I have a react hook form. When I submit the form, I want to fetch the country Id. Currently it is posting the country name. Is there a way to post the ids instead of the names without going and fetching the id from the name.

   <Autocomplete
      className="form-item"
      options={countries}
      getOptionLabel={option => option.name}
      renderInput={params => (
        <TextField
          {...params}
          inputRef={register}
          label="Country"
          name="country"
          placeholder="Select a Country"
          InputLabelProps={{
            shrink: true
          }}
          variant="outlined"
        />
      )}
    />

Answer 1

Use react-hook-form's Controller and put the entire Autocomplete in the as prop. With this, when you submit the form you will get the entire object of the selected option.

Note: In react-hook-form version 6.x, the onChange is removed, the as prop will take a function and you can obtain onChange as param.

Working demo - v6

    <Controller
        as={({ onChange }) => (
          <Autocomplete
            className="form-item"
            options={countries}
            onChange={(_, data) => onChange(data)}
            getOptionLabel={option => option.label}
            renderInput={params => (
              <TextField
                {...params}
                label="Country"
                placeholder="Select a Country"
                InputLabelProps={{
                  shrink: true
                }}
                variant="outlined"
              />
            )}
          />
        )}
        name="country"
        control={control}
        defaultValue={{ label: "The Shawshank Redemption", id: "1994" }}
      />

Note: If you are using v5x then see demo and code snippet below.

Working demo - v5

   <Controller
        as={
          <Autocomplete
            className="form-item"
            options={countries}
            getOptionLabel={option => option.label}
            renderInput={params => (
              <TextField
                {...params}
                label="Country"
                placeholder="Select a Country"
                InputLabelProps={{
                  shrink: true
                }}
                variant="outlined"
              />
            )}
          />
        }
        name="country"
        control={control}
        onChange={([, data]) => data}
        defaultValue={{ label: "The Shawshank Redemption", id: "1994" }}
      />

Edit: based on comment You can use setValue to set default values based on an api.

code snippet:

useEffect(() => {
    setTimeout(() => { // fake api
      setValue(
        "country",
        { label: "hi The Godfather", id: "1972" },
        { shouldDirty: true }
      );
    }, 2000);
  }, []);

Demo v6 above is updated.

Also see official demo of setValue usage here