What is the correct way to use getInitialProps with getDefaultProps (React)

Question

In a react component you can have both functions as shown below.

  getInitialProps() {
    return fetchProps();
  };
  getDefaultProps() {
    return this.defaultProps;
  }

Can getDefaultProps ever be called in the react lifecycle?

I'd imagine you'd want to do some try catch in getInitialProps that grabs the defaultProps whenever it fails to fetchProps :

  getInitialProps() {
    try{
      return fetchProps();
    } catch(error){
      return getDefaultProps();
    }
  };

Seems strange to me.

Answer 1

I know getInitialProps() is used for async behavior while getDefaultProps() is more for setting up the props for a component so it can still render before the props are passed.

So to answer your question I dont think so. you cannot call getDefaultProps() once it is rendered.

This would be an example of using getInitialProps()

Page.getInitialProps = () => {
  return fetch('https://api.github.com/repos/developit/preact')
    .then(res => res.json())
}

While getDefaultProps() would work more like this

getDefaultProps: function() {
return {
  name: 'Mary'
};