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

None of the answers address the issue of having children that are NOT React components, such as text strings. A workaround could be something like this:

// Render method of Parent component
render(){
    let props = {
        setAlert : () => {alert("It works")}
    };
    let childrenWithProps = React.Children.map( this.props.children, function(child) {
        if (React.isValidElement(child)){
            return React.cloneElement(child, props);
        }
          return child;
      });
    return <div>{childrenWithProps}</div>

}

Answer 2

According to the documentation of cloneElement()

React.cloneElement(
  element,
  [props],
  [...children]
)

Clone and return a new React element using element as the starting point. The resulting element will have the original element’s props with the new props merged in shallowly. New children will replace existing children. key and ref from the original element will be preserved.

React.cloneElement() is almost equivalent to:

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

However, 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.

So cloneElement is what you would use to provide custom props to the children. However there can be multiple children in the component and you would need to loop over it. What other answers suggest is for you to map over them using React.Children.map. However React.Children.map unlike React.cloneElement changes the keys of the Element appending and extra .$ as the prefix. Check this question for more details: React.cloneElement inside React.Children.map is causing element keys to change

If you wish to avoid it, you should instead go for the forEach function like

render() {
    const newElements = [];
    React.Children.forEach(this.props.children, 
              child => newElements.push(
                 React.cloneElement(
                   child, 
                   {...this.props, ...customProps}
                )
              )
    )
    return (
        <div>{newElements}</div>
    )

}

Answer 3

Is this what you required?

var Parent = React.createClass({
  doSomething: function(value) {
  }
  render: function() {
    return  <div>
              <Child doSome={this.doSomething} />
            </div>
  }
})

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

Answer 4

The slickest way to do this:

    {React.cloneElement(this.props.children, this.props)}

Answer 5

Pass props to direct children.

See all other answers

Pass shared, global data through the component tree via context

Context is designed to share data that can be considered “global” for a tree of React components, such as the current authenticated user, theme, or preferred language. ¹

Disclaimer: This is an updated answer, the previous one used the old context API

It is based on Consumer / Provide principle. First, create your context

const { Provider, Consumer } = React.createContext(defaultValue);

Then use via

<Provider value={/* some value */}>
  {children} /* potential consumers */
<Provider />

and

<Consumer>
  {value => /* render something based on the context value */}
</Consumer>

All Consumers that are descendants of a Provider will re-render whenever the Provider’s value prop changes. The propagation from Provider to its descendant Consumers is not subject to the shouldComponentUpdate method, so the Consumer is updated even when an ancestor component bails out of the update. ¹

Full example, semi-pseudo code.

import React from 'react';

const { Provider, Consumer } = React.createContext({ color: 'white' });

class App extends React.Component {
  constructor(props) {
    super(props);
    this.state = {
      value: { color: 'black' },
    };
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <Provider value={this.state.value}>
        <Toolbar />
      </Provider>
    );
  }
}

class Toolbar extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return ( 
      <div>
        <p> Consumer can be arbitrary levels deep </p>
        <Consumer> 
          {value => <p> The toolbar will be in color {value.color} </p>}
        </Consumer>
      </div>
    );
  }
}

¹ https://facebook.github.io/react/docs/context.html

Answer 6

If you have multiple children you want to pass props to, you can do it this way, using the React.Children.map:

render() {
    let updatedChildren = React.Children.map(this.props.children,
        (child) => {
            return React.cloneElement(child, { newProp: newProp });
        });

    return (
        <div>
            { updatedChildren }
        </div>
    );
}

If your component is having just one child, there's no need for mapping, you can just cloneElement straight away:

render() {
    return (
        <div>
            {
                React.cloneElement(this.props.children, {
                    newProp: newProp
                })
            }
        </div>
    );
}