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ReactJS: setTimeout() not working?

Having this code in mind:

var Component = React.createClass({

    getInitialState: function () {
        return {position: 0};    
    },

    componentDidMount: function () {
        setTimeout(this.setState({position: 1}), 3000);
    },

    render: function () {
         return (
            <div className="component">
                {this.state.position}
            </div>
         ); 
    }

});

ReactDOM.render(
    <Component />,
    document.getElementById('main')
);

Isn’t the state supposed to change only after 3 seconds? It’s changing immediately.

My main goal here is to change the state every 3 seconds (with setInterval()), but since it was not working, I tried setTimeout(), which is not working either. Any lights on this? Thanks!

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Answer

Do

setTimeout(
    function() {
        this.setState({ position: 1 });
    }
    .bind(this),
    3000
);

Otherwise, you are passing the result of setState to setTimeout.

You can also use ES6 arrow functions to avoid the use of this keyword:

setTimeout(
  () => this.setState({ position: 1 }), 
  3000
);
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