Encountering a "focus" error with React-Native-Phone-Input library, where the property is null

Question

Encountering a "focus" error with React-Native-Phone-Input library, where the property is null

For my project, I decided to incorporate the react-native-phone-input library. Everything was going smoothly until I encountered an issue with their focus function. Initially, it worked perfectly fine, but subsequently, when I attempted to input a phone number, I kept receiving a 'Cannot read property 'focus' of null' error.

Here is the snippet of code causing the problem:

< PhoneInput
ref = { (ref) => {ref.focus()} }
initialCountry='ca'
flagStyle={
  {
    width: 50,
    height: 30,
    borderWidth: 0,
    marginLeft: "29%"
  }
}
textStyle={
  {
    fontSize: 30,
    height: 35
  }
}
autoFormat={ true }
onChangePhoneNumber={
  (number) => this.handleChange(number)
} 
/>

javascript react-native

Answer 1

Answer №1

SOLUTION:

To achieve this, follow these steps:

<Input  ref={(ref) => { this.inputField = ref; }}

Make sure to assign the ref to this.inputField.

Then in componentDidMount, add this.inputField.focus().

REASON:

When using refs, they are not guaranteed to be set during rendering of the component. That is why it's important to utilize them in componentDidMount. Whenever input text is entered, the state changes which triggers a re-render of the component, causing the ref to be null at that point. By placing the ref code in componentDidMount, it will only get called after the complete rendering process, ensuring it works properly.

COMPLETE CODE:

componentDidMount=()=>{
    this.inputField.focus()
}

<Input
ref={(ref) => { this.inputField = ref; }}
placeholder = 'Enter your text'
onChangeText = {
  (text) => this.handleChange(text)
}
/>

Answer 2

SOLUTION:

To achieve this, follow these steps:

<Input  ref={(ref) => { this.inputField = ref; }}

Make sure to assign the ref to this.inputField.

Then in componentDidMount, add this.inputField.focus().

REASON:

When using refs, they are not guaranteed to be set during rendering of the component. That is why it's important to utilize them in componentDidMount. Whenever input text is entered, the state changes which triggers a re-render of the component, causing the ref to be null at that point. By placing the ref code in componentDidMount, it will only get called after the complete rendering process, ensuring it works properly.

COMPLETE CODE:

componentDidMount=()=>{
    this.inputField.focus()
}

<Input
ref={(ref) => { this.inputField = ref; }}
placeholder = 'Enter your text'
onChangeText = {
  (text) => this.handleChange(text)
}
/>

Encountering a "focus" error with React-Native-Phone-Input library, where the property is null

Answer №1

SOLUTION:

REASON:

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