React useEffect doesn't block the re-render

Question

I need to create a functional react component that automatically update the inner data every time there is a particular event.

I written the code below, but every time the callback is called the component is re-rendered and the variable myArray is set to empty array instead to be filled with all content coming in the callback.

What am I doing wrong? What's the approach I should use?

// event emulation
function onEventEmulator(callback, interval = 1000) {
    setInterval(() => callback('content'), interval);
}

function PollingComponent(props) {
    const [myArray, setMyArray] = useState([]);
    useEffect(() => {
        onEventEmulator(content => {
            setMyArray([...myArray, content]);
        });
    }, []); // with or without passing the empty array as second param, result does not change.
    return <ul>
        <li>Callback</li>
        <li>{myArray.length}</li>
    </ul>;
}

Answer 1

Let's try this:

function onEventEmulator(callback, interval = 1000) {
  setInterval(() => callback("content"), interval);
}

And then:

function PollingComponent(props) {
  const [myArray, setMyArray] = useState([]);

  useEffect(() => {
    onEventEmulator(content => {
      setMyArray(arr => [...arr, ...content]);
    });
  }, []);

  return (
    <ul>
      <li>Callback</li>
      <li>{myArray.length}</li>
    </ul>
  );
}

One thing that is missing here is a way to clear setInterval, but I guess that is not your concern here.