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Introducing JSX

Embedding Expressions in JSX

You can put any valid JavaScript expression inside the curly braces in JSX

JSX is an Expression Too

After compilation, JSX expressions become regular JavaScript function calls and evaluate to JavaScript objects.

This means that you can use JSX inside of if statements and for loops, assign it to variables, accept it as arguments, and return it from functions

Specifying Attributes with JSX

You may use quotes to specify string literals as attributes or curly braces to embed a JavaScript expression in an attribute.

JSX Prevents Injection Attacks

By default, React DOM escapes any values embedded in JSX before rendering them. Thus it ensures that you can never inject anything that’s not explicitly written in your application. Everything is converted to a string before being rendered.

Rendering Elements

Rendering an Element into the DOM

const element = <h1>Hello, world</h1>;
ReactDOM.render(element, document.getElementById('root'));

Updating the Rendered Element

React elements are immutable. Once you create an element, you can’t change its children or attributes, the only way to update the UI is to create a new element, and pass it to ReactDOM.render(), note that this method is implicitly called when using setState method.

Components and Props

Conceptually, components are like JavaScript functions. They accept arbitrary inputs (called props) and return React elements describing what should appear on the screen.

Function and Class Components

function Welcome(props) {
  return <h1>Hello, {props.name}</h1>;
}

class Welcome extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return <h1>Hello, {this.props.name}</h1>;
  }
}

Rendering a Component

When React sees an element representing a user-defined component, it passes JSX attributes to this component as a single object. We call this object props.

function Welcome(props) {
  return <h1>Hello, {props.name}</h1>;
}

const element = <Welcome name="Sara" />;
ReactDOM.render(
  element,
  document.getElementById('root')
);

Note: Always start component names with a capital letter.

Props are Read-Only

All React components must act like pure functions with respect to their props.

Of course, application UIs are dynamic and change over time. In the next section, we will introduce a new concept of state

State and Lifecycle

Class components should always call the base constructor with props.

The componentDidMount() method runs after the component output has been rendered to the DOM.

If the component is ever removed from the DOM, React calls componentWillUnmount().

You are free to add additional fields to the class manually if you need to store something that doesn’t participate in the data flow

Using State Correctly

Do Not Modify State Directly

The only place where you can assign this.state is the constructor.

State Updates May Be Asynchronous

Because this.props and this.state may be updated asynchronously, you should not rely on their values for calculating the next state.

// Wrong
this.setState({
  counter: this.state.counter + this.props.increment,
});

// Correct
this.setState((state, props) => ({
  counter: state.counter + props.increment
}));

The Data Flows Down

Neither parent nor child components can know if a certain component is stateful or stateless, and they shouldn’t care whether it is defined as a function or a class.

Any state is always owned by some specific component, and any data or UI derived from that state can only affect components “below” them in the tree, this is commonly called a top-down or unidirectional data flow

Handling Events

React events are named using camelCase, rather than lowercase.

With JSX you pass a function as the event handler, rather than a string.

You cannot return false to prevent default behavior in React. You must call preventDefault explicitly.

When you define a component using an ES6 class, a common pattern is for an event handler to be a method on the class

class Toggle extends React.Component {
  constructor(props) {
    super(props);
    this.state = {isToggleOn: true};

    // This binding is necessary to make `this` work in the callback
    this.handleClick = this.handleClick.bind(this);
  }

  handleClick() {
    this.setState(state => ({
      isToggleOn: !state.isToggleOn
    }));
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <button onClick={this.handleClick}>
        {this.state.isToggleOn ? 'ON' : 'OFF'}
      </button>
    );
  }
}

ReactDOM.render(
  <Toggle />,
  document.getElementById('root')
);

You have to be careful about the meaning of this in JSX callbacks. In JavaScript, class methods are not bound by default. If you forget to bind this.handleClick and pass it to onClick, this will be undefined when the function is actually called, if you refer to a method without () after it, such as onClick={this.handleClick}, you should bind that method.

If calling bind annoys you, there are two ways you can get around this. If you are using the experimental public class fields syntax, you can use class fields to correctly bind callbacks:

class LoggingButton extends React.Component {
  // This syntax ensures `this` is bound within handleClick.
  // Warning: this is *experimental* syntax.
  handleClick = () => {
    console.log('this is:', this);
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <button onClick={this.handleClick}>
        Click me
      </button>
    );
  }
}

This syntax is enabled by default in Create React App.

If you aren’t using class fields syntax, you can use an arrow function in the callback:

class LoggingButton extends React.Component {
  handleClick() {
    console.log('this is:', this);
  }

  render() {
    // This syntax ensures `this` is bound within handleClick
    return (
      <button onClick={(e) => this.handleClick(e)}>
        Click me
      </button>
    );
  }
}

The problem with this syntax is that a different callback is created each time the LoggingButton renders. In most cases, this is fine. However, if this callback is passed as a prop to lower components, those components might do an extra re-rendering. We generally recommend binding in the constructor or using the class fields syntax, to avoid this sort of performance problem.

Passing Arguments to Event Handlers

Inside a loop it is common to want to pass an extra parameter to an event handler. For example, if id is the row ID, either of the following would work:

<button onClick={(e) => this.deleteRow(id, e)}>Delete Row</button>
<button onClick={this.deleteRow.bind(this, id)}>Delete Row</button>

The above two lines are equivalent, and use arrow functions and Function.prototype.bind respectively.

In both cases, the e argument representing the React event will be passed as a second argument after the ID. With an arrow function, we have to pass it explicitly, but with bind any further arguments are automatically forwarded.

Conditional Rendering

Element Variables

class LoginControl extends React.Component {
  constructor(props) {
    super(props);
    this.handleLoginClick = this.handleLoginClick.bind(this);
    this.handleLogoutClick = this.handleLogoutClick.bind(this);
    this.state = {isLoggedIn: false};
  }

  handleLoginClick() {
    this.setState({isLoggedIn: true});
  }

  handleLogoutClick() {
    this.setState({isLoggedIn: false});
  }

  render() {
    const isLoggedIn = this.state.isLoggedIn;
    let button;

    if (isLoggedIn) {
      button = <LogoutButton onClick={this.handleLogoutClick} />;
    } else {
      button = <LoginButton onClick={this.handleLoginClick} />;
    }

    return (
      <div>
        <Greeting isLoggedIn={isLoggedIn} />
        {button}
      </div>
    );
  }
}

ReactDOM.render(
  <LoginControl />,
  document.getElementById('root')
);

Inline If with Logical && Operator

function Mailbox(props) {
  const unreadMessages = props.unreadMessages;
  return (
    <div>
      <h1>Hello!</h1>
      {unreadMessages.length > 0 &&
        <h2>
          You have {unreadMessages.length} unread messages.
        </h2>
      }
    </div>
  );
}

const messages = ['React', 'Re: React', 'Re:Re: React'];
ReactDOM.render(
  <Mailbox unreadMessages={messages} />,
  document.getElementById('root')
);

Inline If-Else with Conditional Operator

render() {
  const isLoggedIn = this.state.isLoggedIn;
  return (
    <div>
      The user is <b>{isLoggedIn ? 'currently' : 'not'}</b> logged in.
    </div>
  );
}

Preventing Component from Rendering

To do this return null instead of its render output.

Returning null from a component’s render method does not affect the firing of the component’s lifecycle methods. For instance componentDidUpdate will still be called.

Lists and Keys

Rendering Multiple Components

You can build collections of elements and include them in JSX using curly braces {}.

const numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
const listItems = numbers.map((number) =>
  <li>{number}</li>
);
ReactDOM.render(
  <ul>{listItems}</ul>,
  document.getElementById('root')
);

Keys

Keys help React identify which items have changed, are added, or are removed. Keys should be given to the elements inside the array to give the elements a stable identity

We don’t recommend using indexes for keys if the order of items may change. This can negatively impact performance and may cause issues with component state

Keys serve as a hint to React but they don’t get passed to your components. If you need the same value in your component, pass it explicitly as a prop with a different name:

const content = posts.map((post) =>
  <Post
    key={post.id}
    id={post.id}
    title={post.title} />
);

Forms

Controlled Components

class NameForm extends React.Component {
  constructor(props) {
    super(props);
    this.state = {value: ''};

    this.handleChange = this.handleChange.bind(this);
    this.handleSubmit = this.handleSubmit.bind(this);
  }

  handleChange(event) {
    this.setState({value: event.target.value});
  }

  handleSubmit(event) {
    alert('A name was submitted: ' + this.state.value);
    event.preventDefault();
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <form onSubmit={this.handleSubmit}>
        <label>
          Name:
          <input type="text" value={this.state.value} onChange={this.handleChange} />
        </label>
        <input type="submit" value="Submit" />
      </form>
    );
  }
}

Controlled Input Null Value

Specifying the value prop on a controlled component prevents the user from changing the input unless you desire so. If you’ve specified a value but the input is still editable, you may have accidentally set value to undefined or null.

The following code demonstrates this. (The input is locked at first but becomes editable after a short delay.)

ReactDOM.render(<input value="hi" />, mountNode);

setTimeout(function() {
  ReactDOM.render(<input value={null} />, mountNode);
}, 1000);

Handling Multiple Inputs

// ES6 computed property name syntax to update the state key corresponding to the given input name:
this.setState({
  [name]: value
});

//It is equivalent to this ES5 code:
var partialState = {};
partialState[name] = value;
this.setState(partialState);

Lifting State Up

Often, several components need to reflect the same changing data. We recommend lifting the shared state up to their closest common ancestor. Let’s see how this works in action.

Composition vs Inheritance

Containment

Some components don’t know their children ahead of time. This is especially common for components like Sidebar or Dialog that represent generic boxes.

We recommend that such components use the special children prop to pass children elements directly into their output:

function FancyBorder(props) {
  return (
    <div className={'FancyBorder FancyBorder-' + props.color}>
      {props.children}
    </div>
  );
}

This lets other components pass arbitrary children to them by nesting the JSX:

function WelcomeDialog() {
  return (
    <FancyBorder color="blue">
      <h1 className="Dialog-title">
        Welcome
      </h1>
      <p className="Dialog-message">
        Thank you for visiting our spacecraft!
      </p>
    </FancyBorder>
  );
}

Anything inside the <FancyBorder> JSX tag gets passed into the FancyBorder component as a children prop. Since FancyBorder renders {props.children} inside a <div>, the passed elements appear in the final output.

While this is less common, sometimes you might need multiple holes in a component. In such cases you may come up with your own convention instead of using children:

function SplitPane(props) {
  return (
    <div className="SplitPane">
      <div className="SplitPane-left">
        {props.left}
      </div>
      <div className="SplitPane-right">
        {props.right}
      </div>
    </div>
  );
}

function App() {
  return (
    <SplitPane
      left={
        <Contacts />
      }
      right={
        <Chat />
      } />
  );
}

So What About Inheritance?

At Facebook, we use React in thousands of components, and we haven’t found any use cases where we would recommend creating component inheritance hierarchies.

Props and composition give you all the flexibility you need to customize a component’s look and behavior in an explicit and safe way. Remember that components may accept arbitrary props, including primitive values, React elements, or functions.

If you want to reuse non-UI functionality between components, we suggest extracting it into a separate JavaScript module. The components may import it and use that function, object, or a class, without extending it.

Thinking in React

Step 1: Break The UI Into A Component Hierarchy

Step 2: Build A Static Version in React (don’t use state at all)

Step 3: Identify The Minimal (but complete) Representation Of UI State

In order to define state. Simply ask three questions about each piece of data:

  1. Is it passed in from a parent via props? If so, it probably isn’t state.
  2. Does it remain unchanged over time? If so, it probably isn’t state.
  3. Can you compute it based on any other state or props in your component? If so, it isn’t state.

Step 4: Identify Where Your State Should Live

Remember: React is all about one-way data flow down the component hierarchy. It may not be immediately clear which component should own what state. This is often the most challenging part for newcomers to understand.

Step 5: Add Inverse Data Flow

Since components should only update their own state, callbacks should be passed to the children components in order to allow them the change the state