Search code examples
reactjsreact-hooksmernreact-datepicker

Date object from react-datepicker not getting saved


Apologies in advance for the abomination of a code you are about to see...

I am relatively new to React and programming in general, and I'm trying to create a MERN application with react-hooks-form to streamline the process. The component I have issues with is the editing portion. I was unable to figure out how to handle controlled inputs in hooks-form so I tried to circumvent the problem by using state to store the values in two different states, which I realize defeats the purpose of using hooks-forms.

Everything so far works fine with the exception of the dateOfBirth which is a required field. On submit, however I get a 400 error and says that dateOfBirth is required.

export default function EditMember(props) {

    const [date, setDate] = useState(null);
    const [member, setMember] = useState({
        firstName: '',
        lastName: '',
        dateOfBirth: null,
        gender: '', 
        address: '',
        phoneNumber: ''
    })


    const onChangeDate = date => {
        setDate(date)
    }

    useEffect(() => {
        axios.get(`http://localhost:5000/members/${props.match.params.id}`)
            .then(res => {
                setMember({
                    firstName: res.data.firstName,
                    lastName: res.data.lastName,
                    dateOfBirth: Date.parse(res.data.dateOfBirth),
                    address: res.data.address,
                    phoneNumber: res.data.phoneNumber,
                    gender: res.data.gender
                });
            })           
    }, [])

    useEffect(() => {
        axios.get(`http://localhost:5000/members/${props.match.params.id}`)
            .then(res => {
                setDate(res.data.dateOfBirth);
            })
    }, []);

    const { register, handleSubmit } = useForm();

    const onSubmitData = data => {
        const updatedMember = {
            firstName: data.firstName,
            lastName: data.lastName,
            dateOfBirth: date,
            address: data.address,
            phoneNumber: data.phoneNumber,
            gender: data.gender,
        } 
        axios.post(`http://localhost:5000/members/update/${props.match.params.id}`, updatedMember)
            .then(res => console.log(res.data))
    }

    return (
            <form onSubmit={handleSubmit(onSubmitData)}>
                <div>
                    <input 
                        type="text" 
                        name="firstName" 
                        defaultValue={member.firstName}
                        placeholder="First name" 
                        ref={register} 
                    />
                    <input 
                        type="text" 
                        name="lastName" 
                        defaultValue={member.lastName}
                        placeholder="Last name" 
                        ref={register} 
                    />
                    <span>Male</span>
                    <input 
                        type="radio" 
                        value="Male" 
                        name="gender"
                        ref={register}
                    /> 
                    <span>Female</span> 
                        <input 
                        type="radio" 
                        value="Female" 
                        name="gender" 
                        ref={register} 
                    /> 
                    <input 
                        type="text" 
                        name="address" 
                        placeholder="Address" 
                        ref={register}
                        defaultValue={member.address}
                    <input  
                        type="text" 
                        name="phoneNumber" 
                        placeholder="Phone Number" 
                        ref={register} 
                        defaultValue={member.phoneNumber}
                    />
                    <DatePicker
                        selected = {member.dateOfBirth}
                        onChange = {onChangeDate} 
                        placeholderText="Select date"   
                    />
                    <button type="submit">Edit Log</button>
            </form> 
    )
}

Any reason as to why this occurs? Besides that, any insight into how I can refactor the code would be helpful.


Solution

  • In order to use react-datepicker with react-hook-form you need to utilize react-hook-form's Controller component. Reference here: Integrating Controlled Inputs.

    The following component declaration illustrates wrapping a react-datepicker DatePicker component in a react-hook-form Controller component. It is registered with react-hook-form using control={control} and then renders the DatePicker in the Controller components render prop.

    const { register, handleSubmit, control, setValue } = useForm();
    
    //...
    
    <Controller
      name="dateOfBirth"
      control={control}
      defaultValue={date}
      render={() => (
        <DatePicker
          selected={date}
          placeholderText="Select date"
          onChange={handleChange}
        />
      )}
    />
    

    The DatePicker still needs to control its value using handleChange and a date state, but we can use this same handler to update the value of the registered input for react-hook-form using setValue().

    const handleChange = (dateChange) => {
      setValue("dateOfBirth", dateChange, {
        shouldDirty: true
      });
      setDate(dateChange);
    };
    

    Your full component (without API calls) might look like the following. onSubmitData() is called by react-hook-form's handleSubmit() and here logs the output of the form, including the updated DatePicker value.

    Here's a working sandbox.

    import React from "react";
    import "./styles.css";
    import { useForm, Controller } from "react-hook-form";
    import DatePicker from "react-datepicker";
    
    export default function App() {
      return (
        <div className="App">
          <EditMember />
        </div>
      );
    }
    
    function EditMember() {
      const { register, handleSubmit, control, setValue } = useForm();
      const [date, setDate] = React.useState(new Date(Date.now()));
    
      const onSubmitData = (data) => {
        console.log(data);
        
        // axis.post(
        //   `http://localhost:5000/members/update/${props.match.params.id}`,
        //    data).then(res => console.log(res.data))
      }
    
      const handleChange = (dateChange) => {
        setValue("dateOfBirth", dateChange, {
          shouldDirty: true
        });
        setDate(dateChange);
      };
    
      return (
        <div>
          <form onSubmit={handleSubmit(onSubmitData)}>
            <input
              type="text"
              name="firstName"
              placeholder="First name"
              ref={register}
            />
            <input
              type="text"
              name="lastName"
              placeholder="Last name"
              ref={register}
            />
            <span>Male</span>
            <input type="radio" value="Male" name="gender" ref={register} />
            <span>Female</span>
            <input type="radio" value="Female" name="gender" ref={register} />
            <input
              type="text"
              name="address"
              placeholder="Address"
              ref={register}
            />
            <input
              type="text"
              name="phoneNumber"
              placeholder="Phone Number"
              ref={register}
            />
            <Controller
              name="dateOfBirth"
              control={control}
              defaultValue={date}
              render={() => (
                <DatePicker
                  selected={date}
                  placeholderText="Select date"
                  onChange={handleChange}
                />
              )}
            />
    
            <button type="submit">Edit Log</button>
          </form>
        </div>
      );
    }
    
    

    Output

    //Output
    
    Object {firstName: "First", lastName: "Last", gender: "Male", address: "Addy", phoneNumber: "fon"…}
     firstName: "First"
     lastName: "Last"
     gender: "Male"
     address: "Addy"
     phoneNumber: "fon"
     dateOfBirth: Wed Aug 19 2020 17:20:12 GMT+0100 (BST)