I have a form with an input component that may be empty or it may be prefilled with some data. It’s also a controlled component so I keep track of the value of the input field using React’s useState.

Something like this:

export const MyComponent = props => {
    const [value, setValue] = useState(props.value || null)

    return <input value={value} type="text" />
}

In reality, however, prefilling the initial state of the input field is a bit more complex as there is a bit more drilling I have to do in the props argument and some checks that I have to do before initializing the default value.

Now, I can do this:

export const MyComponent = props => {
    const [value, setValue] = useState(null)

    useEffect(() => {
        if (props.one?.two?.[0].value !== 0) {
            const option = props.someList.find(x => x.id === props.one.two[0].value)
            if (option)
                setValue(option)
        }
    }, [])

    return <input value={value} type="text" />
}

But I get warnings saying that useEffect has missing dependencies and I should add the props drilldown to my dependencies array. But I don’t want to have the useEffect run every single time that is updated. I just want to have it run once upon component mount / initialization and that’s it.

Is there a way to do my complicated initialization without having to use useEffect?

>Solution :

The initial value to useState can be a function. You can put the logic there instead of in a useEffect.

const [value, setValue] = useState(getInitialValue)

const getInitialValue = () => {
  if (props.one?.two?.[0].value !== 0) {
    const option = props.someList.find(x => x.id === props.one.two[0].value)
    if (option) {
      return option;
    }
  }
  return null;
}

Notice that it was not useState(getInitialValue()). Passing the function for React to call means it will only be called once. Calling it yourself will cause it to happen every render.