Converting componentDidMount into useEffect

I am trying to learn React hooks, and trying to convert existing codebase to use hooks, but I am confused. Is it normal to set state inside useEffect? Would I be causing the dreaded infinite loop if I do so?

import React, { useState, useEffect } from 'react';
import App from 'next/app';
import Layout from './../components/Layout';

function MyApp({ Component, pageProps }) {
    const [ cart, setCart ] = useState([]);

    const addToCart = (product) => {
        setCart((prevCartState) => {
            return [ ...prevCartState, product ];
        });
        localStorage.setItem('cart', JSON.stringify(cart));
    };

    //mimicking componentDidMount to run some effect using useEffect
    //useEffect(() => setCount((currentCount) => currentCount + 1), []);
    useEffect(() => {
        const cartCache = JSON.parse(localStorage.getItem('cart'));
        //cart = cartCache; Good or bad?
        cartCache || setCart(() =>{

        });        
    }, []);
    return <Component {...pageProps} />;
}

My original class based component:

/*
export default class MyApp extends App {
  state = {
    cart: []
  }
  componentDidMount = () => {
    const cart = JSON.parse(localStorage.getItem('cart'));
    if (cart) {
      this.setState({
        cart
      });
    }
  };
  addToCart = (product) => {
    this.setState({
      cart: [...this.state.cart, product]
    });
    localStorage.setItem('cart', JSON.stringify(this.state.cart));
  }
  render() {
    const { Component, pageProps } = this.props
    return (
      <contextCart.Provider value={{ cart: this.state.cart, addToCart: this.addToCart }}>
        <Layout>
          <Component {...pageProps} />
        </Layout>
      </contextCart.Provider>
    )
  }
}*/

Answer

It’s okey to set state inside useEffect as long as you don’t listen to changes of the same field inside dependency array. In your particular case you are calling useEffect only once (since you have passed an empty dependency array).

useEffect(() => {
   const cartCache = JSON.parse(localStorage.getItem('cart'));
   if (cartCache) {
      setCart(cartCache);   
   }     
}, []);

Also would be cool to add the second useEffect to listen to cart changes and keep the localStorage up-to-date.

useEffect(() => {
   localStorage.setItem('cart', JSON.stringify(cart));
}, [cart]);