Hey, I'm just now seeing this. So, my component hierarchy is something like this:

App

• Form
  • TextInput
  • PhoneInput

The TextInput components are very simple:

import { ErrorMessage } from "../ErrorMessage"; //this function can be used to determine if the error message renders based on criteria

export const FunctionalTextInput = ({
  dataProperty,
  errorMessage,
  placeholder,
  value,
  propertyHandler,
}: {
  dataProperty: string;
  errorMessage: string;
  placeholder: string;
  value: string;
  propertyHandler: (property: string, e: string) => void;
}) => {
  //Object.keys(initialUserData)[0]
  return (
    <>
      <div>
        {dataProperty}:
         propertyHandler(dataProperty, e.target.value)}
        />
      </div>
      
    
  );
};

export const FunctionalTextInput = ({
  dataProperty,
  errorMessage,
  placeholder,
  value,
  propertyHandler,
}: {
  dataProperty: string;
  errorMessage: string;
  placeholder: string;
  value: string;
  propertyHandler: (property: string, e: string) => void;
}) => {
  //Object.keys(initialUserData)[0]
  return (
    <>
      <div>
        {dataProperty}:
         propertyHandler(dataProperty, e.target.value)}
        />
      </div>
      
    
  );
};

The shape of my data is like so:

export type UserInformation = {
  firstName: string;
  lastName: string;
  email: string;
  city: string;
  phone: string[];
};

In my Form Component, I have two functions that work in the TextInput component, but not the PhoneInput component.

const dataHandler = (e: FormEvent) => {
    e.preventDefault();
    userDataHandler(formData);
    setFormData(initialUserData);
  };
const propertyHandler = (property: string, value: string) => {
    setFormData((prevProp) => ({ ...prevProp, [property]: value }));
  };

So, over the past few hours I've been trying to talk to bing about this, and get some answers. After a few hours, I finally think the problem is a conflict of state. It seems like the state I'm using in my PhoneInput component interferes with the state of the parent component. This seems to be the case since when I click submit, my dataHandler function doesn't trigger for the PhoneInput component.

So, I guess now I'm wondering how that works? I've heard of raising state to the parent, but passing state down, not as data, but as actual state, sounds difficult and somewhat complex. I'm wondering how to use this technique, the uses, and how I can determine when to use it. Or, better yet, maybe I'm missing something and the answer is right outside my reach.

The phone input in question:

// This is a component that is used for the phone input
// it wall accept 4 inputs, and "lift" the values to the parent component as a single, unformatted string.

import { ChangeEventHandler, useRef, useState } from "react";
import { ErrorMessage } from "../ErrorMessage";

type TPhoneInputProps = {
  errorMessage: string;
  dataProperty: string;
  higherPhoneState: string[];
  propertyHandler: (property: string, e: string) => void;
};
export const FunctionalPhoneInput = ({
  errorMessage,
  dataProperty,
  higherPhoneState,
  propertyHandler,
}: TPhoneInputProps) => {
  const [phoneState, setPhoneState] = useState(["", "", "", ""]);
  const phoneNumber = [
    useRef(null),
    useRef(null),
    useRef(null),
    useRef(null),
  ];
  const phoneNum0 = phoneNumber[0];
  const phoneNum1 = phoneNumber[1];
  const phoneNum2 = phoneNumber[2];
  const phoneNum3 = phoneNumber[3];
  const phoneChangeController =
    (
      index: 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 //  1 | 2 | 3 | 4,
    ): ChangeEventHandler =>
    (e: React.ChangeEvent) => {
      const length = [2, 2, 2, 1];
      const nextInput = phoneNumber[index + 1];
      const prevInput = phoneNumber[index - 1];
      const maxLength = length[index];
      const value = e.target.value;
      const shouldGoToNextInput =
        maxLength === value.length && nextInput?.current;
      const shouldGoToPrevInput = value.length === 0;
      const newState = phoneState.map((phone, phoneIndex) =>
        index === phoneIndex ? e.target.value : phone
      );
      if (shouldGoToNextInput) {
        nextInput.current?.focus();
      }
      if (shouldGoToPrevInput) {
        prevInput.current?.focus();
      }
      setPhoneState(newState);
      console.log(newState.join(""));
      console.log(dataProperty);

      // Concatenate the new state with e.target.value to get the full phone number
      // const fullPhoneNumber =
      //   newState.slice(0, index).join("") +
      //   e.target.value +
      //   newState.slice(index + 1).join("");
      propertyHandler(dataProperty, newState.join(""));
    };
  return (
<> 
<div>
        Phone:
        <div>
          
          -
          
          -
          
          -
          
        </div>
      </div>

  );
};

Please note that this component is 1000% broken. I was in the process of changing it with Bings suggestions, but it's frustrating getting anything useful out of the thing.

If there's any links, resources, mental models, or anything that you or anyone else think would be helpful in getting this to work, I'm all ears. Also, since it's pretty obvious that this is an assignment, my limitation is that I cannot use useEffect, and the PhoneComponent has to use 4 inputs.

I've been stuck on this for about a week now, so any help, feedback, insight, or articles I should read would be incredibly appreciated.