React - Changing the state without using setState: Must avoid it?

Question

My code works, but I have a best practice question: I have an array of objects in the state, and a user interaction will change a value of one object at a time. As far a

Answer 1

If you want follow react best practices, you should do shallow copy of all your array, when you change any property. Please look into "immutable" library implementation.

But, from my experience, and from my opinion, setState method should be called if you have "shouldCompomenentUpdate" implementations. If you think, that your shallow copy will be consume much more resources, then react virtual dom checks, you can do this:

this.state.data[0].property = !this.state.data[0].property;
this.forceUpdate();