Multiple calls to state updater from useState in component causes multiple re-renders

You could combine the loading state and data state into one state object and then you could do one setState call and there will only be one render.

Note: Unlike the setState in class components, the setState returned from useState doesn't merge objects with existing state, it replaces the object entirely. If you want to do a merge, you would need to read the previous state and merge it with the new values yourself. Refer to the docs.

I wouldn't worry too much about calling renders excessively until you have determined you have a performance problem. Rendering (in the React context) and committing the virtual DOM updates to the real DOM are different matters. The rendering here is referring to generating virtual DOMs, and not about updating the browser DOM. React may batch the setState calls and update the browser DOM with the final new state.

const {useState, useEffect} = React;

function App() {
  const [userRequest, setUserRequest] = useState({
    loading: false,
    user: null,
  });

  useEffect(() => {
    // Note that this replaces the entire object and deletes user key!
    setUserRequest({ loading: true });
    fetch('https://randomuser.me/api/')
      .then(results => results.json())
      .then(data => {
        setUserRequest({
          loading: false,
          user: data.results[0],
        });
      });
  }, []);

  const { loading, user } = userRequest;

  return (
    <div>
      {loading && 'Loading...'}
      {user && user.name.first}
    </div>
  );
}

ReactDOM.render(<App />, document.querySelector('#app'));

<script src="https://unpkg.com/[email protected]/umd/react.development.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/[email protected]/umd/react-dom.development.js"></script>
<div id="app"></div>

Alternative - write your own state merger hook

const {useState, useEffect} = React;

function useMergeState(initialState) {
  const [state, setState] = useState(initialState);
  const setMergedState = newState => 
    setState(prevState => Object.assign({}, prevState, newState)
  );
  return [state, setMergedState];
}

function App() {
  const [userRequest, setUserRequest] = useMergeState({
    loading: false,
    user: null,
  });

  useEffect(() => {
    setUserRequest({ loading: true });
    fetch('https://randomuser.me/api/')
      .then(results => results.json())
      .then(data => {
        setUserRequest({
          loading: false,
          user: data.results[0],
        });
      });
  }, []);

  const { loading, user } = userRequest;

  return (
    <div>
      {loading && 'Loading...'}
      {user && user.name.first}
    </div>
  );
}

ReactDOM.render(<App />, document.querySelector('#app'));

<script src="https://unpkg.com/[email protected]/umd/react.development.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/[email protected]/umd/react-dom.development.js"></script>
<div id="app"></div>

This also has another solution using useReducer! first we define our new setState.

const [state, setState] = useReducer(
  (state, newState) => ({...state, ...newState}),
  {loading: true, data: null, something: ''}
)

after that we can simply use it like the good old classes this.setState, only without the this!

setState({loading: false, data: test.data.results})

As you may noticed in our new setState (just like as what we previously had with this.setState), we don't need to update all the states together! for example I can change one of our states like this (and it doesn't alter other states!):

setState({loading: false})

Awesome, Ha?!

So let's put all the pieces together:

import {useReducer} from 'react'

const getData = url => {
  const [state, setState] = useReducer(
    (state, newState) => ({...state, ...newState}),
    {loading: true, data: null}
  )

  useEffect(async () => {
    const test = await api.get('/people')
    if(test.ok){
      setState({loading: false, data: test.data.results})
    }
  }, [])

  return state
}

Batching update in react-hooks https://github.com/facebook/react/issues/14259

React currently will batch state updates if they're triggered from within a React-based event, like a button click or input change. It will not batch updates if they're triggered outside of a React event handler, like an async call.