How can I fix 'warning Expected 'this' to be used by class method ' eslint error?
There are two different answers to this question, depending on how you want to handle it.
First, the reason you get this error is because of the ESLint rule https://eslint.org/docs/rules/class-methods-use-this. Specifically, this is because if something is a class method, e.g. if you are calling this.foo()
to call a function, the whole reason to make it a method is because there are properties on this
that you need to use.
While in many languages with class
, most functions are methods, that is not the case in JS. If you have a class like
class Example {
constructor(){
this.data = 42;
}
someMethod() {
this.someHelper(this.data);
}
someHelper(value){
console.log(value);
}
}
the someHelper
function would trigger the same error you are getting, because it never uses this
, so you can just as easily do
class Example {
constructor(){
this.data = 42;
}
someMethod() {
someHelper(this.data);
}
}
function someHelper(value){
console.log(value);
}
In your case, you can do this. Your whole savePDF
function could be moved outside of the class
object.
That said, it is important to ask yourself why something like this isn't using this
. In most cases, you'd expect any function that works with HTML to absolutely use this
, because how else, in React, is it supposed to access the element's that React has created.
So the real answer to your question would be to drop the
const source = document.getElementById('printContainer');
line. If you need access to the HTML element being created by React, you should be using React's APIs to do so. That would be done with something like
class SavePDFButton extends React.Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props);
this.printContainer = null;
this.savePDF = this.savePDF.bind(this);
this.handlePrintContainerRef = this.handlePrintContainerRef.bind(this);
}
render() {
return (
<div>
<Link
name="save-to-pdf"
onClick={this.savePDF}
button="secondary"
>
Save to PDF
</Link>
<div
id="printContainer"
className="cf-app-segment--alt cf-hearings-worksheet"
ref={this.handlePrintContainerRef}
/>
</div>
);
}
handlePrintContainerRef(el) {
// When React renders the div, the "ref={this.handlePrintContainerRef}" will
// make it call this function, which will store a reference.
this.printContainer = el;
}
savePDF() {
// OLD: const source = document.getElementById('printContainer');
const source = this.printContainer;
// ...
}
}
I believe that's caused by the class-methods-use-this
ESLint rule.
It's just letting you know that your function doesn't use this
, so you can probably make it a static function.
turn it into static function
static savePDF() { ... }
Its happening because this function isnt using this
meaning it dosnt need to be dynamic