Table State (Lit) Guide

TanStack Table has a simple underlying internal state management system to store and manage the state of the table. It also lets you selectively pull out any state that you need to manage in your own state management. This guide will walk you through the different ways in which you can interact with and manage the state of the table.

Accessing Table State

You do not need to set up anything special in order for the table state to work. If you pass nothing into either state, initialState, or any of the on[State]Change table options, the table will manage its own state internally. You can access any part of this internal state by using the table.getState() table instance API.

private tableController = new TableController<Person>(this);

render() {
  const table = this.tableController.table({
    columns,
    data,
    ...
  })

  console.log(table.getState()) //access the entire internal state
  console.log(table.getState().rowSelection) //access just the row selection state
  // ...
}

private tableController = new TableController<Person>(this);

render() {
  const table = this.tableController.table({
    columns,
    data,
    ...
  })

  console.log(table.getState()) //access the entire internal state
  console.log(table.getState().rowSelection) //access just the row selection state
  // ...
}

Custom Initial State

If all you need to do for certain states is customize their initial default values, you still do not need to manage any of the state yourself. You can simply set values in the initialState option of the table instance.

render() {
  const table = this.tableController.table({
    columns,
    data,
    initialState: {
      columnOrder: ['age', 'firstName', 'lastName'], //customize the initial column order
      columnVisibility: {
        id: false //hide the id column by default
      },
      expanded: true, //expand all rows by default
      sorting: [
        {
          id: 'age',
          desc: true //sort by age in descending order by default
        }
      ]
    },
  })

  return html`...`;
}

render() {
  const table = this.tableController.table({
    columns,
    data,
    initialState: {
      columnOrder: ['age', 'firstName', 'lastName'], //customize the initial column order
      columnVisibility: {
        id: false //hide the id column by default
      },
      expanded: true, //expand all rows by default
      sorting: [
        {
          id: 'age',
          desc: true //sort by age in descending order by default
        }
      ]
    },
  })

  return html`...`;
}

Note: Only specify each particular state in either initialState or state, but not both. If you pass in a particular state value to both initialState and state, the initialized state in state will take overwrite any corresponding value in initialState.

Controlled State

If you need easy access to the table state in other areas of your application, TanStack Table makes it easy to control and manage any or all of the table state in your own state management system. You can do this by passing in your own state and state management functions to the state and on[State]Change table options.

Individual Controlled State

You can control just the state that you need easy access to. You do NOT have to control all of the table state if you do not need to. It is recommended to only control the state that you need on a case-by-case basis.

In order to control a particular state, you need to both pass in the corresponding state value and the on[State]Change function to the table instance.

Let's take filtering, sorting, and pagination as an example in a "manual" server-side data fetching scenario. You can store the filtering, sorting, and pagination state in your own state management, but leave out any other state like column order, column visibility, etc. if your API does not care about those values.

jsx

import {html} from "lit";

@customElement('my-component')
class MyComponent extends LitElement {
  @state()
  private _sorting: SortingState = []

  render() {
    const table = this.tableController.table({
      columns,
      data,
      state: {
        sorting: this._sorting,
      },
      onSortingChange: updaterOrValue => {
        if (typeof updaterOrValue === 'function') {
          this._sorting = updaterOrValue(this._sorting)
        } else {
          this._sorting = updaterOrValue
        }
      },
      getSortedRowModel: getSortedRowModel(),
      getCoreRowModel: getCoreRowModel(),
    })

    return html`...`
  }
}
//...

import {html} from "lit";

@customElement('my-component')
class MyComponent extends LitElement {
  @state()
  private _sorting: SortingState = []

  render() {
    const table = this.tableController.table({
      columns,
      data,
      state: {
        sorting: this._sorting,
      },
      onSortingChange: updaterOrValue => {
        if (typeof updaterOrValue === 'function') {
          this._sorting = updaterOrValue(this._sorting)
        } else {
          this._sorting = updaterOrValue
        }
      },
      getSortedRowModel: getSortedRowModel(),
      getCoreRowModel: getCoreRowModel(),
    })

    return html`...`
  }
}
//...

Fully Controlled State

Alternatively, you can control the entire table state with the onStateChange table option. It will hoist out the entire table state into your own state management system. Be careful with this approach, as you might find that raising some frequently changing state values up a component tree, like columnSizingInfo state`, might cause bad performance issues.

A couple of more tricks may be needed to make this work. If you use the onStateChange table option, the initial values of the state must be populated with all of the relevant state values for all of the features that you want to use. You can either manually type out all of the initial state values, or use the table.setOptions API in a special way as shown below.


private tableController = new TableController<Person>(this);

@state()
private _tableState;

render() {
  const table = this.tableController.table({
    columns,
    data,
    getCoreRowModel: getCoreRowModel(),
    getSortedRowModel: getSortedRowModel()
  })
  const state = { ...table.initialState, ...this._tableState };
  table.setOptions(prev => ({
    ...prev,
    state,
    onStateChange: updater => {
      this._tableState =
        updater instanceof Function ? updater(state) : updater //any state changes will be pushed up to our own state management
    },
  }))

  return html`...`;
}


private tableController = new TableController<Person>(this);

@state()
private _tableState;

render() {
  const table = this.tableController.table({
    columns,
    data,
    getCoreRowModel: getCoreRowModel(),
    getSortedRowModel: getSortedRowModel()
  })
  const state = { ...table.initialState, ...this._tableState };
  table.setOptions(prev => ({
    ...prev,
    state,
    onStateChange: updater => {
      this._tableState =
        updater instanceof Function ? updater(state) : updater //any state changes will be pushed up to our own state management
    },
  }))

  return html`...`;
}

On State Change Callbacks

So far, we have seen the on[State]Change and onStateChange table options work to "hoist" the table state changes into our own state management. However, there are a few things about these using these options that you should be aware of.

1. State Change Callbacks MUST have their corresponding state value in the state option.

Specifying an on[State]Change callback tells the table instance that this will be a controlled state. If you do not specify the corresponding state value, that state will be "frozen" with its initial value.

jsx

@state()
private _sorting = [];
//...
render() {
  const table = this.tableController.table({
    columns,
    data,
    state: {
      sorting: this._sorting,
    },
    onSortingChange: updaterOrValue => {
      if (typeof updaterOrValue === 'function') {
        this._sorting = updaterOrValue(this._sorting)
      } else {
        this._sorting = updaterOrValue
      }
    },
    getSortedRowModel: getSortedRowModel(),
    getCoreRowModel: getCoreRowModel(),
  })

  return html`...`;
}

@state()
private _sorting = [];
//...
render() {
  const table = this.tableController.table({
    columns,
    data,
    state: {
      sorting: this._sorting,
    },
    onSortingChange: updaterOrValue => {
      if (typeof updaterOrValue === 'function') {
        this._sorting = updaterOrValue(this._sorting)
      } else {
        this._sorting = updaterOrValue
      }
    },
    getSortedRowModel: getSortedRowModel(),
    getCoreRowModel: getCoreRowModel(),
  })

  return html`...`;
}

2. Updaters can either be raw values or callback functions.

The on[State]Change and onStateChange callbacks work exactly like the setState functions in React. The updater values can either be a new state value or a callback function that takes the previous state value and returns the new state value.

What implications does this have? It means that if you want to add in some extra logic in any of the on[State]Change callbacks, you can do so, but you need to check whether or not the new incoming updater value is a function or value.

This is why you will see the updater instanceof Function ? updater(state.value) : updater pattern in the examples above. This pattern checks if the updater is a function, and if it is, it calls the function with the previous state value to get the new state value.

State Types

All complex states in TanStack Table have their own TypeScript types that you can import and use. This can be handy for ensuring that you are using the correct data structures and properties for the state values that you are controlling.

tsx

import { TableController, type SortingState } from '@tanstack/lit-table'
//...
@state()
private _sorting: SortingState = [
  {
    id: 'age', //you should get autocomplete for the `id` and `desc` properties
    desc: true,
  }
]

import { TableController, type SortingState } from '@tanstack/lit-table'
//...
@state()
private _sorting: SortingState = [
  {
    id: 'age', //you should get autocomplete for the `id` and `desc` properties
    desc: true,
  }
]

Table State (Lit) Guide