immutable-state-and-merging.md

title	nav
Immutable state and merging	3

Like with React's useState, we need to update state immutably.

Here's a typical example:

import { create } from 'zustand'

const useCountStore = create((set) => ({
  count: 0,
  inc: () => set((state) => ({ count: state.count + 1 })),
}))

The set function is to update state in the store. Because the state is immutable, it should have been like this:

set((state) => ({ ...state, count: state.count + 1 }))

However, as this is a common pattern, set actually merges state, and we can skip the ...state part:

set((state) => ({ count: state.count + 1 }))

Nested objects

The set function merges state at only one level. If you have a nested object, you need to merge them explicitly. You will use the spread operator pattern like so:

import { create } from 'zustand'

const useCountStore = create((set) => ({
  nested: { count: 0 },
  inc: () =>
    set((state) => ({
      nested: { ...state.nested, count: state.nested.count + 1 },
    })),
}))

For complex use cases, consider using some libraries that help with immutable updates. You can refer to Updating nested state object values.

Replace flag

To disable the merging behavior, you can specify a replace boolean value for set like so:

set((state) => newState, true)