How to pass props to {this.props.children}

Question

I'm trying to find the proper way to define some components which could be used in a generic way:

<Parent>
  <Child value="1">
  <Child value="2">
</Parent>

There is a logic going on for rendering between parent and children components of course, you can imagine <select> and <option> as an example of this logic.

This is a dummy implementation for the purpose of the question:

var Parent = React.createClass({
  doSomething: function(value) {
  },
  render: function() {
    return (<div>{this.props.children}</div>);
  }
});

var Child = React.createClass({
  onClick: function() {
    this.props.doSomething(this.props.value); // doSomething is undefined
  },
  render: function() {
    return (<div onClick={this.onClick}></div>);
  }
});

The question is whenever you use {this.props.children} to define a wrapper component, how do you pass down some property to all its children?

Answer 1

Some reason React.children was not working for me. This is what worked for me.

I wanted to just add a class to the child. similar to changing a prop

 var newChildren = this.props.children.map((child) => {
 const className = "MenuTooltip-item " + child.props.className;
    return React.cloneElement(child, { className });
 });

 return <div>{newChildren}</div>;

The trick here is the React.cloneElement. You can pass any prop in a similar manner

Answer 2

Try this

<div>{React.cloneElement(this.props.children, {...this.props})}</div>

It worked for me using react-15.1.

Answer 3

With the update to React 16.6 you can now use React.createContext and contextType.

import * as React from 'react';

// React.createContext accepts a defaultValue as the first param
const MyContext = React.createContext(); 

class Parent extends React.Component {
  doSomething = (value) => {
    // Do something here with value
  };

  render() {
    return (
       <MyContext.Provider value={{ doSomething: this.doSomething }}>
         {this.props.children}
       </MyContext.Provider>
    );
  }
}

class Child extends React.Component {
  static contextType = MyContext;

  onClick = () => {
    this.context.doSomething(this.props.value);
  };      

  render() {
    return (
      <div onClick={this.onClick}>{this.props.value}</div>
    );
  }
}


// Example of using Parent and Child

import * as React from 'react';

class SomeComponent extends React.Component {

  render() {
    <Parent>
      <Child value={1} />
      <Child value={2} />
    </Parent>
  }
}

React.createContext shines where React.cloneElement case couldn't handle nested components

class SomeComponent extends React.Component {

  render() {
    <Parent>
      <Child value={1} />
      <SomeOtherComp><Child value={2} /></SomeOtherComp>
    </Parent>
  }
}

Answer 4

You can use React.cloneElement, it's better to know how it works before you start using it in your application. It's introduced in React v0.13, read on for more information, so something along with this work for you:

<div>{React.cloneElement(this.props.children, {...this.props})}</div>

So bring the lines from React documentation for you to understand how it's all working and how you can make use of them:

In React v0.13 RC2 we will introduce a new API, similar to React.addons.cloneWithProps, with this signature:

React.cloneElement(element, props, ...children);

Unlike cloneWithProps, this new function does not have any magic built-in behavior for merging style and className for the same reason we don't have that feature from transferPropsTo. Nobody is sure what exactly the complete list of magic things are, which makes it difficult to reason about the code and difficult to reuse when style has a different signature (e.g. in the upcoming React Native).

React.cloneElement is almost equivalent to:

<element.type {...element.props} {...props}>{children}</element.type>

However, unlike JSX and cloneWithProps, it also preserves refs. This means that if you get a child with a ref on it, you won't accidentally steal it from your ancestor. You will get the same ref attached to your new element.

One common pattern is to map over your children and add a new prop. There were many issues reported about cloneWithProps losing the ref, making it harder to reason about your code. Now following the same pattern with cloneElement will work as expected. For example:

var newChildren = React.Children.map(this.props.children, function(child) {
  return React.cloneElement(child, { foo: true })
});

Note: React.cloneElement(child, { ref: 'newRef' }) DOES override the ref so it is still not possible for two parents to have a ref to the same child, unless you use callback-refs.

This was a critical feature to get into React 0.13 since props are now immutable. The upgrade path is often to clone the element, but by doing so you might lose the ref. Therefore, we needed a nicer upgrade path here. As we were upgrading callsites at Facebook we realized that we needed this method. We got the same feedback from the community. Therefore we decided to make another RC before the final release to make sure we get this in.

We plan to eventually deprecate React.addons.cloneWithProps. We're not doing it yet, but this is a good opportunity to start thinking about your own uses and consider using React.cloneElement instead. We'll be sure to ship a release with deprecation notices before we actually remove it so no immediate action is necessary.

more here...

Answer 5

Further to @and_rest answer, this is how I clone the children and add a class.

<div className="parent">
    {React.Children.map(this.props.children, child => React.cloneElement(child, {className:'child'}))}
</div>

Answer 6

Parent.jsx:

import React from 'react';

const doSomething = value => {};

const Parent = props => (
  <div>
    {
      !props || !props.children 
        ? <div>Loading... (required at least one child)</div>
        : !props.children.length 
            ? <props.children.type {...props.children.props} doSomething={doSomething} {...props}>{props.children}</props.children.type>
            : props.children.map((child, key) => 
              React.cloneElement(child, {...props, key, doSomething}))
    }
  </div>
);

Child.jsx:

import React from 'react';

/* but better import doSomething right here,
   or use some flux store (for example redux library) */
export default ({ doSomething, value }) => (
  <div onClick={() => doSomething(value)}/>
);

and main.jsx:

import React from 'react';
import { render } from 'react-dom';
import Parent from './Parent';
import Child from './Child';

render(
  <Parent>
    <Child/>
    <Child value='1'/>
    <Child value='2'/>
  </Parent>,
  document.getElementById('...')
);

see example here: https://plnkr.co/edit/jJHQECrKRrtKlKYRpIWl?p=preview