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[React 19] allow opting out of automatic form reset when Form Actions are used #29034
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I think you should return current values from action in such case and update the default value 😃 |
@adobe export issue to Jira project PWA |
I think you should return current values from action in such case and update the default value. and return required! |
This is very necessary in the step-by-step form, such as verifying the email in the auth form first |
Be careful to handle if the action throws an error, your "returning the new default" at the end of the function will be ineffective. |
The automatic form reset in React 19 actually caught me off guard, where in my case, I was trying to validate the form inputs on the server, then return & display the input errors on the client, but React will reset all my uncontrolled inputs. For context, I wrote a library just for doing server-side validation https://github.com/chungweileong94/server-act?tab=readme-ov-file#useformstate-support. I know that you can pass the original input ( It's easy to reset a form, but hard to restore a form. |
Now that I have played with React 19 form reset for a while, I think this behavior kind of forces us to write a more progressive enhancement code. This means that if you manually return the form data from the server and restore the form values, the user input will persist even without JavaScript enabled. Mixed feelings, pros and cons. |
what about using onSubmit as well the action to prevent default? |
If you want to opt-out of automatic form reset, you should continue using +function handleSubmit(event) {
+ event.preventDefault();
+ const formData = new FormData(event.target);
+ startTransition(() => action(formData));
+}
...
-<form action={action}>
+<form onSubmit={handleSubmit}> -- That way you still opt-into transitions but keep the old non-resetting behavior. And if you're a component library with your own action-based API that wants to maintain form-resetting behavior, you can use // use isPending instead of `useFormStatus().pending`
const [isPending, startTransition] from useTransition();
function onSubmit(event) {
// Disable default form submission behavior
event.preventDefault();
const form = event.target;
startTransition(async () => {
// Request the form to reset once the action
// has completed
ReactDOM.requestFormReset(form);
// Call the user-provided action prop
await action(new FormData(form));
})
} --https://codesandbox.io/p/sandbox/react-opt-out-of-automatic-form-resetting-45rywk We haven't documented that yet in https://react.dev/reference/react-dom/components/form. It would help us a lot if somebody would file a PR with form-resetting docs. |
@eps1lon do you think using I am surprised by this new default behavior here, because this forces essentially everyone to use So if this reset behavior is a 100% set in stone for React 19, why not suggest using |
@rwieruch I'm not sure this is true. As @acdlite mentions in the PR below, it's for uncontrolled inputs.
Controlled inputs are probably in almost every form case still desirable with RSC (as Sebastian mentions "I will also say that it's not expected that uncontrolled form fields is the way to do forms in React. Even the no-JS mode is not that great.") Also, this is about "not diverging from browser behavior", as @rickhanlonii mentions in more discussion over on X here: But it does indeed seem to be a controversial choice to match browser behavior and reset uncontrolled fields. |
EDIT: I have written about the solution over HERE. Thanks for the input here @karlhorky and putting all the pieces together. I have seen that this matches the native browser more closely, so I see the incentive for this change. Just wanted to double check here, because I am re-adjusting my teaching material again (my own fault here, because we are still quite early on this :)). So if I am not using a third-party library for forms or actions, would the following code look good for upserting an entity with form + server action, if I still would want to use the const TicketUpsertForm = ({ ticket }: TicketUpsertFormProps) => {
const [actionState, action] = useActionState(
upsertTicket.bind(null, ticket?.id),
{ message: "" }
);
return (
<form action={action} className="flex flex-col gap-y-2">
<Label htmlFor="title">Title</Label>
<Input
id="title"
name="title"
type="text"
defaultValue={
(actionState.payload?.get("title") as string) || ticket?.title
}
/>
<Label htmlFor="content">Content</Label>
<Textarea
id="content"
name="content"
defaultValue={
(actionState.payload?.get("content") as string) || ticket?.content
}
/>
<SubmitButton label={ticket ? "Edit" : "Create"} />
{actionState.message}
</form>
);
}; And then the action returns the const upsertTicketSchema = z.object({
title: z.string().min(1).max(191),
content: z.string().min(1).max(1024),
});
export const upsertTicket = async (
id: string | undefined,
_actionState: {
message: string;
payload?: FormData;
},
formData: FormData
) => {
try {
const data = upsertTicketSchema.parse({
title: formData.get("title"),
content: formData.get("content"),
});
await prisma.ticket.upsert({
where: {
id: id || "",
},
update: data,
create: data,
});
} catch (error) {
return {
message: "Something went wrong",
payload: formData,
};
}
revalidatePath(ticketsPath());
if (id) {
redirect(ticketPath(id));
}
return { message: "Ticket created" };
}; EDIT: I think that's something @KATT wanted to point out in his proposal: #28491 (comment) |
Yup, that’s pretty much it. This way it works the same if submitted before hydration happens |
Resetting the form automatically is a real head-scratcher. How should we preserve the state of a form when errors occur? Using Using controlled components defeats the purpose of The example here is deceptively simple, as there are no visible form inputs. What am I missing? |
The docs are misleading on this topic because on the React 19 docs, it's the React 18 canary version that is shown as an example which does not reset the form. https://19.react.dev/reference/react-dom/components/form#handling-multiple-submission-types |
Automatic form reset only applies when passing functions to the The original issue description isn't explicit about this. @LutherTS If there was a change in behavior to APIs available in previous React stable versions, please include a reproduction. |
@eps1lon You're correct, the feature has only been available since the React 18 canary version so it's only going to be breaking for those using the canary version. However, the canary version is the default version running on Next.js, so the change may be breaking for a significant number of codebases there. |
The same thing doesn't apply to NextJS app router tho, where both |
Sure, but that would be an issue for Next.js. I don't think we rolled this change out in a 14.x Next.js stable release. The automatic form reset was enabled in #28804 which was included in vercel/next.js#65058 which is not part of any stable Next.js release as far as I can tell. |
OK, so what you're saying is this behavior only happens in Next.js 15 RC which uses React 19 RC, both of which being currently unstable, and therefore this is a trade-off for using unstable versions. Then at the very least the React 19 docs should reflect these changes. And I reiterate that if these changes are reflected in the React 19 docs, the entire example for "Handling multiple submission types" is completely irrelevant, because there is no point in saving a draft if after saving said draft it disappears from the textarea. So how does the React team reconcile presenting a feature for one purpose when the actual feature currently does the exact opposite? |
True, fair enough.
Yes, it is not. But that's the whole points right, where we feedback on a feature before stable release. I do think that auto form reset behaviour does bring some benefits in terms of progressive enhancement, but if you think again, React is kinda doing extra stuff unnecessarily. By default, the browser will reset the form when we submit it, then when we submit a form via JS(React), it retains the form values after submit, but React then artificially reset the form. Yes, form reset is a cheap operation, but why not make it an option for people to opt-in instead of doing it automatically. |
And that's certainly appreciated. Though there's an important difference between a change in behavior and the behavior of a new feature. The comments here read as though this breakage is not the norm when we didn't change any behavior between stable, SemVer minor React releases nor between stable, SemVer minor Next.js releases. Changes in behavior between Canary releases should be expected. Now that we established that this isn't a change in behavior, we can discuss the automatic form reset. The reason this was added was that it matches the native browser behavior before hydration or with no JS (e.g. when |
I have no minimal example at hand, but it seems like |
That seems like something you should be able to highlight starting with https://react.new. Though I believe |
@devdatkumar but why do all this? just use the built in html input validation and submit the form, what do you mean write regex for every component?? |
This video only covers a very basic, server-centered scenario. I think the community does not have any problems with understanding these patterns. However, forms in many real-world applications typically require a bit more interactivity. Where I see the community currently having problems is building client-side interactivity around these new server-centered building blocks. Unmounting a form or closing a dialog after completing the Action, resetting the state of a dialog that internally used |
Don't you think the built-in html input validation code will be cultured for validation below.
|
The way react and next js handles forms is about server side only but we may want also client side validation just like how react-hook-form works.But the problem is that it uses onSubmit and it can't be used with useActionState.A simple sln i think we can use built in Html validation as our client side validation.or use this library https://conform.guide/ works with action attribute,zod and useActionState but idon't think it is ready for production. |
@shemaikuzwe https://conform.guide/ doesn't really have clean code. but i what i really prefer is a solution from the react team / @leerob. for example the scenario I ran into: on client side, do not reset form if Zod validation fails, so that user can fix data and then finally submit.
|
I wonder what's reason behind this change. The expected user's behaviour is to retain their inputs in case there's an error. And how does it work with returning 25MB PDF from the server when there's an error in another field? 🤔 |
That's to me consider a huge file tho, overtime it's will cost you a lot of bandwidth, you might want to change the strategy? What I usually do in this case is that I will upload the file to the server separately, then return a file ID for the rest of the form submission. |
That's what I've been saying since before React 19 became stable. The solution for me – and really what I think is the solution so far – is doing it like @leerob and @rwieruch before initially recommended, which is using a Server Action via onSubmit with event.preventDefault() instead. Because indeed, Server Actions (meaning Server Functions sent to the client then wrapped into startTransition or managed with useActionState) can be used on any listener, not just on the action prop of the form or the formAction prop of a button. ...Or you can always use React Router v7 where the inputs are retained after the action and can be dismissed on success by handling the actionData. |
syntactic: semantic: type validation: now if i just consider built-in html input validation, how do i confirm sematic validation? not only that, even if i use sematic validation, it doesn't display what is missing, it just highlight invalid data by default. so, for me to display what's missing / wrong with data, |
@devdatkumar I get it, but I would say that its not reacts job to consider that you want to use zod/yup as a validating library - so yeah you will need to use onSubmit + prevent default and handle errors manually - orrr just do server side validation only and not mess around with it :) there will eventually be a form library that integrates with it all and provides a seamless experience but react 19 is new so it will take time. I think there will probably always be caveats/boilerplate as trying to merge server/client side experiences into one thing may just not be possible - but who knows |
Hello all I just wrote a simple library the purpose of which is have server side validation (with zod), client side native validation and maintain form values across submits. |
While I applaud the effort ... am I crazy for thinking it SHOULD NOT require a separate library just to have the client retain knowledge it already has (instead of arbitrarily discarding it after every server communication)? 😦 |
I agree with you @machineghost this is quite unnatural and should be part of the react api, at least an option to choose if reset or not the form across submits. |
This form resetting has just eaten 2h of my time. It is very counter-intuitive. In real life, we just don't reset forms, because we don't want to lose user's input accidentally! And it's not even documented in https://react.dev/reference/react-dom/components/form#handling-multiple-submission-types Related radix-ui (shadcn) issue: radix-ui/primitives#3444 |
@dimikot The doc does mention the behavior. https://react.dev/reference/react-dom/components/form#handle-form-submission-on-the-client. You either return the original data from server function and set the default input values, or use |
Just discovered that useFormState was working fine. // const [state, action] = useFormState(loginAction, initialState); // <------- keeps data
const [state, action] = useActionState(loginAction, initialState); // <-------- resets form |
@vsDizzy That's because useFormState is the older version of useActionState. Perhaps I'm wrong but I assume it is supposed to be deprecated and I don't think it comes with the 3rd |
I just wanted to mention that when it was canary and lived in 'react-dom' it was working fine. |
Here's another workaround - it turns out that React is actually calling 'use client';
import { useActionState, useEffect, useRef } from 'react';
import { serverAction } from './actions';
export function FormNoReset() {
const [state, formAction] = useActionState(serverAction, { data: {} });
const formRef = useRef<HTMLFormElement>(null);
useEffect(() => {
function watchReset(e: Event) {
console.log('reset in react', e);
e.preventDefault();
}
const form = formRef.current;
form?.addEventListener('reset', watchReset);
return () => {
form?.removeEventListener('reset', watchReset);
};
}, []);
return (
<form action={formAction} ref={formRef}>
{state.message && <div>{state.message}</div>}
<label>
This input will retain it's value
<input type="text" name="input1" />
</label>
<input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>
);
} ![]() I haven't tested this out fully so there might be edge cases where it turns out this is a bad idea. But so far this is solving these issues for me, while we wait for #30580 to be solved. |
A lot of posts above recommend returning Is there any advantage to that method over just using i.e. function Form() {
const [formState, formAction, pending] = useActionState(
addPostServerAction,
{
status: null,
}
)
function handleSubmit(e: FormEvent<HTMLFormElement>) {
e.preventDefault()
startTransition(() => {
formAction(new FormData(e.currentTarget))
})
}
return (
<form
action={formAction}
onSubmit={handleSubmit}
>
//... Here we get no-js submission thanks to the form This seems a lot simpler than the other method, and cuts down on data being sent to and from the server. What's also nice is that it's now easy to add whatever else we want to Just wondering if there's something I'm missing and whether there's a reason not to do this? |
@eps1lon @mdj-uk Thank you for suggesting a good approach. Please take a look at this code: "use client";
import React, { startTransition, useActionState, useState } from "react";
import Form from "next/form";
import {
CircleAlert,
Eye,
EyeClosed,
LoaderPinwheel,
LogIn,
UserRoundCheck,
} from "lucide-react";
import { Button } from "@/components/ui/button";
import { Input } from "@/components/ui/input";
import { Label } from "@/components/ui/label";
import { signinSchema } from "@/lib/types/auth-schema";
import { signInAction} from "@/actions/auth/signin";
import { cn } from "@/lib/utils";
type FieldError = {
email?: string[] | undefined;
password?: string[] | undefined;
};
export default function SigninForm() {
const [showPassword, setShowPassword] = useState(false);
const [fieldError, setFieldError] = useState<FieldError | undefined>({});
const [state, dispatch, isPending] = useActionState(signInAction, undefined);
const handleAction = async (formData: FormData) => {
const validationResult = signinSchema.safeParse(
Object.fromEntries(formData)
);
setFieldError({});
if (!validationResult.success) {
setFieldError(validationResult.error.flatten().fieldErrors);
return;
}
dispatch(formData);
};
const handleSubmit = (event: React.FormEvent<HTMLFormElement>) => {
event.preventDefault();
startTransition(() => {
handleAction(new FormData(event.currentTarget));
});
};
return (
<Form action={signInAction} onSubmit={handleSubmit}>
<div className="grid gap-4">
<div className="grid gap-2">
<Label htmlFor="email">Email</Label>
<Input
id="email"
name="email"
type="email"
autoComplete="email"
placeholder="[email protected]"
required
disabled={isPending}
/>
{fieldError?.email && (
<ul className="text-red-500 text-sm">
{fieldError.email.map((error, index) => (
<li key={index}>{error}</li>
))}
</ul>
)}
</div>
<div className="grid gap-2">
<Label htmlFor="password">Password</Label>
<div className="flex gap-x-1">
<Input
id="password"
name="password"
type={showPassword ? "text" : "password"}
placeholder="********"
autoComplete="current-password"
required
disabled={isPending}
/>
<Button
className="rounded-xl"
type="button"
variant={"outline"}
onClick={() => {
setShowPassword((prev) => !prev);
}}
aria-label={showPassword ? "Hide password" : "Show password"}
aria-pressed={showPassword}
>
{showPassword ? <Eye /> : <EyeClosed />}
</Button>
</div>
<div>
{fieldError?.password && (
<ol className="text-red-500 text-sm">
Password must contain:
{fieldError.password.map((error, index) => (
<li key={index} className="pl-2">
- {error}
</li>
))}
</ol>
)}
</div>
</div>
{state && (
<div
className={cn(
"p-3 rounded-md flex items-center gap-x-2 text-sm border",
state?.success
? "bg-green-500/20 text-green-500"
: "bg-destructive/20 text-red-500"
)}
>
{state?.success ? <UserRoundCheck /> : <CircleAlert />}
<p>{state.message}</p>
</div>
)}
<Button type="submit" disabled={isPending}>
{isPending && <LoaderPinwheel className="animate-spin" />}
<LogIn />
Sign in
</Button>
</div>
</Form>
);
} Server Actions "use server";
import { db } from "@/db";
import { eq } from "drizzle-orm";
import { users } from "@/db/schema";
import { signinSchema } from "@/lib/types/auth-schema";
import bcryptjs from "bcryptjs";
export async function signInAction(_prevState: unknown, formData: FormData) {
const rawData = Object.fromEntries(formData.entries());
const result = signinSchema.safeParse(rawData);
if (!result.success) {
return {
message: "Data validation failed",
success: false,
};
}
const { email, password } = result.data;
try {
const [user] = await db
.select({
userId: users.userId,
password: users.password,
role: users.role,
})
.from(users)
.where(eq(users.email, email));
if (!user || !user.password) {
return {
message: "User not found!",
success: false,
};
}
const isPasswordValid = await bcryptjs.compare(password, user.password);
if (!isPasswordValid) {
return {
message: "Invalid credentials!",
success: false,
};
}
return {
message: "Sign in success!",
success: true,
};
} catch (error) {
return {
message: error instanceof Error ? error.message : "Something went wrong!",
success: false,
};
}
} I tried disabling the JS in browser, and it doesn't work since the useStateAction and zod validation leverages JS. But, along with this I tested with calling the server Action directly, and it works: Changed the action from <Form action={signInAction2} onSubmit={handleSubmit}> export async function signInAction2(formData: FormData) {
const rawData = Object.fromEntries(formData.entries());
const result = signinSchema.safeParse(rawData);
console.log(result);
} now this does work when JS disabled, and print the results in console. Anyone reading this, understand this in a little depth, please comment and let's discuss. |
Summary
repo: https://github.com/stefanprobst/issue-react-19-form-reset
react 19@beta currently will automatically reset a form with uncontrolled components after submission. it would be really cool if there was a way to opt out of this behavior, without having to fall back to using controlled components - especially since component libraries (e.g.
react-aria
) have invested quite a bit of time to work well as uncontrolled form elements.the main usecase i am thinking of are forms which allow saving progress, or saving a draft, before final submit. currently, every "save progress" would reset the form.
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