I have a React component using an infinite scroll to fetch information from an api using a pageToken.
When the user hits the bottom of the page, it should fetch the next bit of information. I thought myself clever for passing the pageToken to a useEffect hook, then updating it in the hook, but this is causing all of the api calls to run up front, thus defeating the use of the infinite scroll.
I think this might be related to React's derived state, but I am at a loss about how to solve this.
here is my component that renders the dogs:
export const Drawer = ({
onClose,
}: DrawerProps) => {
const [currentPageToken, setCurrentPageToken] = useState<
string | undefined | null
>(null);
const {
error,
isLoading,
data: allDogs,
nextPageToken,
} = useDogsList({
pageToken: currentPageToken,
});
const loader = useRef(null);
// When user scrolls to the end of the drawer, fetch more dogs
const handleObserver = useCallback(
(entries) => {
const [target] = entries;
if (target.isIntersecting) {
setCurrentPageToken(nextPageToken);
}
},
[nextPageToken],
);
useEffect(() => {
const option = {
root: null,
rootMargin: '20px',
threshold: 0,
};
const observer = new IntersectionObserver(handleObserver, option);
if (loader.current) observer.observe(loader.current);
}, [handleObserver]);
return (
<Drawer
onClose={onClose}
>
<List>
{allDogs?.map((dog) => (
<Fragment key={dog?.adopterAttributes?.id}>
<ListItem className={classes.listItem}>
{dog?.adopterAttributes?.id}
</ListItem>
</Fragment>
))}
{isLoading && <div>Loading...</div>}
<div ref={loader} />
</List>
</Drawer>
);
};
useDogsList essentially looks like this with all the cruft taken out:
import { useEffect, useRef, useState } from 'react';
export const useDogsList = ({
pageToken
}: useDogsListOptions) => {
const [isLoading, setLoading] = useState(false);
const [error, setError] = useState<Error | null>(null);
const [nextPageToken, setNextPageToken] = useState<string | null | undefined>(
null,
);
const [allDogs, setAllDogs] = useState(null);
useEffect(() => {
const fetchData = async () => {
setLoading(true);
try {
const result =
await myClient.listDogs(
getDogsRequest,
{
token,
},
);
const dogListObject = result?.toObject();
const newDogs = result?.dogsList;
setNextPageToken(dogListObject?.pagination?.nextPageToken);
// if API returns a pageToken, that means there are more dogs to add to the list
if (nextPageToken) {
setAllDogs((previousDogList) => [
...(previousDogList ?? []),
...newDogs,
]);
}
}
} catch (responseError: unknown) {
if (responseError instanceof Error) {
setError(responseError);
} else {
throw responseError;
}
} finally {
setLoading(false);
}
};
fetchData();
}, [ pageToken, nextPageToken]);
return {
data: allDogs,
nextPageToken,
error,
isLoading,
};
};
Basically, the api call returns the nextPageToken, which I want to use for the next call when the user hits the intersecting point, but because nextPageToken is in the dependency array for the hook, the hook just keeps running. It retrieves all of the data until it compiles the whole list, without the user scrolling.
I'm wondering if I should be using useCallback or look more into derivedStateFromProps but I can't figure out how to make this a "controlled" component. Does anyone have any guidance here?