How to Get a React Component’s Element

By  on  

JSX is an amazing pseudo-language for React, and if I'm honest, it's what brought me to love React so much.  Using React without JSX is cumbersome and frustrating, while using JSX is such an easier way to express your code.  One drawback of JSX, however, is that it makes accessing component elements indirect, if not difficult.

The truth is that accessing a component's own elements is actually much easier than most think.  Let's look at how a component method can access its own DOM node with JavaScript:

Method 1:  react-dom

react-dom provides a findDomNode method for finding the component's node:

// Get ReactDOM
import ReactDOM from "react-dom";

// In your component method
class MyComponent extends Component {

    myMethod() {
        const node = ReactDOM.findDOMNode(this);
    }

}

With ReactDOM.findDOMNode(this), you can get the widget's main node, and from there you can use typical DOM methods:

const node = ReactDOM.findDOMNode(this);

// Get child nodes
if (node instanceof HTMLElement) {
    const child = node.querySelector('.someClass');
}

This mixes a bit of React and basic JavaScript DOM manipulation.

Method 2:  ref

Another method of getting DOM nodes is by using refs; an example usage is detailed in my React and autofocus post:

class MyComponent extends Component {

  // The element we want to retrieve
  _input: ?HTMLInputElement;

  // ....

  componentDidUpdate() {
    this._input.focus();
  }

  render() {
      return (
        <div>
            <input
              ref={c => (this._input = c)}
            />
        </div>
      );
    }
  }
}

Adding a ref attribute to the element you want a handle on is a more React-centric approach to getting a handle on an element.  Both strategies work well so choose whichever you prefer!

Recent Features

  • By
    7 Essential JavaScript Functions

    I remember the early days of JavaScript where you needed a simple function for just about everything because the browser vendors implemented features differently, and not just edge features, basic features, like addEventListener and attachEvent.  Times have changed but there are still a few functions each developer should...

  • By
    Camera and Video Control with HTML5

    Client-side APIs on mobile and desktop devices are quickly providing the same APIs.  Of course our mobile devices got access to some of these APIs first, but those APIs are slowly making their way to the desktop.  One of those APIs is the getUserMedia API...

Incredible Demos

Discussion

  1. If you’re on React 16.3 and up best to use React.createRef() (https://reactjs.org/docs/refs-and-the-dom.html#creating-refs)

  2. Rico

    There are new methods for creating a ref in React 16.3.

  3. Muhammad zubair

    i have a parent component in which two other components are defined .What i want is to access on component element in the second component to change it behavior.Help could be appreciated….

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!