javascript - Why is useState not triggering re-render?

Question

I've initialized a state that is an array, and when I update it my component does not re-render. Here is a minimal proof-of-concept:

function App() {
  const [numbers, setNumbers] = React.useState([0, 1, 2, 3]);
  console.log("rendering...");
  return (
    <div className="App">
      {numbers.map(number => (
        <p>{number}</p>
      ))}
      <input
        type="text"
        value={numbers[0].toString()}
        onChange={newText => {
          let old = numbers;
          old[0] = 1;
          setNumbers(old);
        }}
      />
    </div>
  );
}

Based on this code, it seems that the input should contain the number 0 to start, and any time it is changed, the state should change too. After entering "02" in the input, the App component does not re-render. However, if I add a setTimeout in the onChange function which executes after 5 seconds, it shows that numbers has indeed been updated.

Any thoughts on why the component doesn't update?

Here is a CodeSandbox with the proof of concept.

Answer 1

You're calling setNumbers and passing it the array it already has. You've changed one of its values but it's still the same array, and I suspect React doesn't see any reason to re-render because state hasn't changed; the new array is the old array.

One easy way to avoid this is by spreading the array into a new array:

setNumbers([...old])