React setState + Where does 'prevState' come from?

  1. prevState is provided by React along with props, both of which are optional.

    • Update 04/13/19: React has changed the setState function documentation by renaming prevState to updater. The callback function still takes two arguments; the state and props at the time the change is being applied.
  2. The parenthesis allow multiple lines where if you didn't use the parenthesis you'd be forced to used a return. You could use a single line but you don't need the curly braces.

    • Update: I forgot to mention a specific case where it is required to have parenthesis. If you're returning an object without a return statement you must wrap it in parenthesis. Thank you @joedotnot for catching that. So () => {foo: true} will throw an error because it looks like a function and foo: true is an invalid line. To fix this it must look like () => ({ foo: true })

Im use this. (Example)

const [modal, setModal] = useState(false);
const [dataAction, setDataAction] = useState({name: '', description: ''});

const _handleChangeName = (data) => {
    if(data.name)
        setDataAction( prevState  => ({ ...prevState,   name : data.name }));
    if(data.description)
        setDataAction( prevState  => ({ ...prevState,   description : data.description }));
  };