I have embedded a reactjs
component into an existing HTML page by referencing it's ID like described in React's tutorial:
ReactDOM.render(
<Page />,
document.getElementById('my-react-compnent')
);
Then:
<div id="my-react-compnent></div>
The component is displayed and works as expected.
Now I want to link a button located on that page to my component (to be specific I would like to retrive its state, but for the example even invoking one of its methods would be fine).
In other words - when clicking the outside button, I want to invoke a method from the Page
component?
How can I do that?
The Old Recommendation
Assigning the returned value from ReactDOM.render
does allow access to the component and it's methods. For example, in a simple app, we might have:
const PageComponent = ReactDOM.render(<Page />, document.getElementById("app"));
which we can then access using PageComponent
, and any of its methods can be accessed with PageComponent.METHOD
.
However, according to the docs this might be changed or deprecated and is not recommended.
The New Recommendation
The new recommendation is to attach a callback ref
to the root element. Using the same example above:
const PageComponent = ReactDOM.render(<Page ref={(pageComponent) => {window.pageComponent = pageComponent}}/>, document.getElementById("app"));
which we can then access using window.pageComponent
, and any of its methods can be accessed with window.pageComponent.METHOD
.
This also works for child components.
Here's a full example:
class ChildComponent extends React.Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props);
this.state = {
counter: 0
}
}
returnCounter = () => {
return this.state.counter;
}
increment = (event) => {
event.stopPropagation();
this.setState(prevState => {
return {
counter: prevState.counter + 1
}
})
}
render() {
return (
<div onClick={this.increment}>
Child Value - {this.state.counter} - Click to increment
</div>
)
}
}
class Page extends React.Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props);
this.state = {
counter: 0
}
}
returnCounter = () => {
return this.state.counter;
}
increment = () => {
this.setState(prevState => {
return {
counter: prevState.counter + 1
}
})
}
render() {
return (
<div onClick={this.increment}>
<div>Parent Value - {this.state.counter} - Click to increment</div>
<ChildComponent ref={(childComponent) => {window.childComponent = childComponent}}/>
</div>
)
}
}
ReactDOM.render(<Page ref={(pageComponent) => {window.pageComponent = pageComponent}} />, document.getElementById("app"));
const parentBtn = document.getElementById("parentButton");
parentBtn.addEventListener("click", event => {
alert(window.pageComponent.returnCounter());
});
const childBtn = document.getElementById("childButton");
childBtn.addEventListener("click", event => {
alert(window.childComponent.returnCounter());
});
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react/15.1.0/react.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react/15.1.0/react-dom.min.js"></script>
<div id="app"></div>
<button id="parentButton">Get Parent State</button>
<button id="childButton">Get Child State</button>