'Generating x number of React components from integer variable
So I have a webpage that's meant to model a sort of questionnaire. Each question would take up the whole page, and the user would switch back and forth between questions using the arrow keys. That part's fine, swapping components on button pressing doesn't seem to be an issue, and I got a proof-of-concept of that working before.
The trouble is, these questionnaires won't have the same number of questions every time. That'll depend on the choice of the person making the questionnaire. So I stored the number of questions in a variable held in the Django Model, and I fetch that variable and try to generate x number of components based on that integer. At the moment I'm just trying to get it to generate the right number of components and let me navigate between them properly, I'll worry about filling them with the proper content later, because I'm already having enough trouble with just this. So here's my code:
import React, { useState, useEffect, cloneElement } from 'react';
import { useParams } from 'react-router-dom'
import QuestionTest from './questiontest';
function showNextStage(displayedTable, questionCount) {
let newStage = displayedTable + 1;
if (newStage > questionCount) {
newStage = questionCount;
}
return newStage;
}
function showPreviousStage(displayedTable) {
let newStage = displayedTable - 1;
if (newStage < 1) {
newStage = 1;
}
return newStage;
}
export default function Questionnaire(props) {
const initialState = {
questionCount: 2,
is_host: false
}
const [ roomData, setRoomData ] = useState(initialState)
const { roomCode } = useParams()
useEffect(() => {
fetch("/audio/get-room" + "?code=" + roomCode)
.then(res => res.json())
.then(data => {
setRoomData({
roomData,
questionCount: data.questionCount,
isHost: data.isHost,
})
})
},[roomCode,setRoomData])
const [ displayedTable, setDisplayedTable ] = useState(1);
let initialComponents = {};
for (let i = 1; i < roomData.questionCount + 1; i++) {
initialComponents[i] = <div><p>{i}</p> <QuestionTest /></div>
}
// "<QuestionTest />" is just a random component I made and "{i}" is
// to see if I'm on the right one as I test.
const [components] = useState(initialComponents);
useEffect(() => {
window.addEventListener('keydown', (e) => {
if (e.keyCode == '39') {
setDisplayedTable(showNextStage(displayedTable, roomData.questionCount));
} else if (e.keyCode == '37') {
setDisplayedTable(showPreviousStage(displayedTable));
}
});
return () => {
window.removeEventListener('keydown', (e) => {
if (e.keyCode == '39') {
setDisplayedTable(showNextStage(displayedTable, roomData.questionCount));
} else if (e.keyCode == '37') {
setDisplayedTable(showPreviousStage(displayedTable));
}
});
};
}, []);
return (
<div>
{components[displayedTable]}
</div>
)
}
So the trouble with this is, I need to set an initial state for the questionCount variable, or else I get errors. But this initial state is replaced almost immediately with the value set for this questionnaire, as retrieved by the fetch function, and so the state resets. The initial questionCount value of 2 however gets used in the component generation and in the adding of the eventListeners, and so when the page is generated it just has two components rather than a number matching questionCount's value for the questionnaire.
I don't really understand this tbh. If I remove the window.addEventLister from useEffect and make it standalone, then it works and the right number of components are generated, but then it adds a new EventListener every time the state refreshes, which starts to cause immense lag as you switch back and forth between pages as the function calls pile up and up.
So I don't really know how to achieve this. My entire way of going about this from the onset is probably terribly wrong (I just included it to show I made an attempt and wasn't just asking for it to be done for me), but I can't find any examples of what I'm trying to do online.
Sources
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Source: Stack Overflow
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