The useMutation hook

8. The useMutation hook

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💻 Mutation in client-land

Playing with the Explorer was fun, but we do need to run the mutation from user input in our app. So let's move over to client land and send off our mutation using a new hook!

We want to update the number of views just before we navigate from the homepage to the track page. This navigation is happening inside our TrackCard component.

Inside the client/src/containers folder, let's open up the track-card.js file.

At the top, let's start importing from the @apollo/client package. We'll need gql, because we'll be using that same string template literal for our mutation, and we'll also need the useMutation hook to send our mutation to our server.

import { gql, useMutation } from "@apollo/client";

Next, let's make a new variable to hold our mutation called INCREMENT_TRACK_VIEWS, setting it to the gql template literal and adding backticks (`). Inside the backticks, we'll paste the mutation we built previously in Studio, and add a comment to explain what this mutation is for.

/**
 * Mutation to increment a track's number of views
 */
const INCREMENT_TRACK_VIEWS = gql`
  mutation IncrementTrackViews($incrementTrackViewsId: ID!) {
    incrementTrackViews(id: $incrementTrackViewsId) {
      code
      success
      message
      track {
        id
        numberOfViews
      }
    }
  }
`;

🎣 The `useMutation` hook

Because this is a mutation and not a query, we won't be using the useQuery hook we're familiar with. Instead we'll switch to the useMutation hook.

Inside the TrackCard component, we'll start off by calling the hook. It takes in the mutation we set up earlier, INCREMENT_TRACK_VIEWS, as the first parameter.

The second parameter is an object with a variables key. Here, we'll add the incrementTrackViewsId variable and set it to the id of the track we're navigating to. This id has already been destructured for us at the top from the track prop.

useMutation(INCREMENT_TRACK_VIEWS, {
  variables: { incrementTrackViewsId: id },
});

Now, here's a twist: unlike with useQuery, calling useMutation doesn't actually execute the mutation automatically!

Instead, the useMutation hook returns an array with two elements, which we'll start to destructure here.

const [incrementTrackViews] = useMutation(INCREMENT_TRACK_VIEWS, {
  variables: { incrementTrackViewsId: id },
});

The first element is the mutate function we'll use to actually run the mutation later on. We'll call it incrementTrackViews. The second element is an object with information about the mutation: loading, error and data. This component doesn't need it, so we don't have to extract it.

👆🏽Setting up the `onClick`

When do we want to run our mutate function? When the user clicks on the card!

Let's add an onClick prop to the CardContainer component and configure it to call our mutate function, incrementTrackViews.

<CardContainer
  to={`/track/${id}`}
  onClick={incrementTrackViews}
>

Sending a mutation client-side

We use hooks to send requests to our GraphQL API from a React client. To send a mutation, we use the

hook. This returns an

, where the first element is the

used to trigger the mutation. The second element is an object with more information about the mutation, such as loading, error and

. This hook takes in a

as the first parameter. It also takes in an

object as the second parameter, where properties like

are set.

Drag items from this box to the blanks above

mutate function
options
useMutation
useGqlQuery
variables
values
useQuery
GraphQL operation
arguments
array
data
integer

Which of these are differences between the useQuery and useMutation hooks?

The useQuery hook is used to send queries, whereas the useMutation hook is used to send mutationsThe useQuery hook returns an object, whereas the useMutation hook returns an arrayOnly the useQuery hook accepts variablesThe useQuery hook returns an array, whereas the useMutation hook returns an objectThe useQuery hook runs automatically on component render, whereas the useMutation hook returns a mutate function needed to trigger the mutation

1️⃣ One more thing…

One last thing—let's add a console log to check the mutation response when it's completed.

To do this, let's go back to where we set up our useMutation hook and add another property to our options object. The onCompleted property is a callback function that will run when the mutation successfully completes, and it has access to the response that comes back. We'll log the response to the browser console.

const [incrementTrackViews] = useMutation(INCREMENT_TRACK_VIEWS, {
  variables: { incrementTrackViewsId: id },
  // to observe what the mutation response returns
  onCompleted: (data) => {
    console.log(data);
  },
});

Our client app is ready to send off this mutation to the server! Let's see the results of our journey in the last lesson!

Code Challenge!

Use the useMutation hook to send the ASSIGN_SPACESHIP_MUTATION mutation to the server. It takes two variables: spaceshipId and missionId. Destructure the mutate function (call it assignSpaceship), as well as the loading, error and data properties from the return array of the hook.

Share your questions and comments about this lesson

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💻 Mutation in client-land

🎣 The useMutation hook

👆🏽Setting up the onClick

1️⃣ One more thing…

Share your questions and comments about this lesson

🎣 The `useMutation` hook

👆🏽Setting up the `onClick`