Warning: Each child in an array or iterator should have a unique "key" prop. Check the render method of `ListView`

Question

I built an app with ReactNative both for iOS and android with a ListView. When populating the listview with a valid datasource, the following warning is printed at the bottom of the screen:

Warning: Each child in an array or iterator should have a unique "key" prop. Check the render method of ListView.

What is the purpose of this warning? After the message they link to this page, where complete different things are discussed which have nothing to do with react native, but with web based reactjs.

My ListView is built with those statements:

render() {
    var store = this.props.store;

    return (

        <ListView
            dataSource={this.state.dataSource}
            renderHeader={this.renderHeader.bind(this)}
            renderRow={this.renderDetailItem.bind(this)}
            renderSeparator={this.renderSeparator.bind(this)}
            style={styles.listView}
            />

    );
}

My DataSource consists of something like:

    var detailItems = [];

    detailItems.push( new DetailItem('plain', store.address) );
    detailItems.push( new DetailItem('map', '') );

    if(store.telefon) {
        detailItems.push( new DetailItem('contact', store.telefon, 'Anrufen', 'fontawesome|phone') );
    }
    if(store.email) {
        detailItems.push( new DetailItem('contact', store.email, 'Email', 'fontawesome|envelope') );
    }
    detailItems.push( new DetailItem('moreInfo', '') );

    this.setState({
        dataSource: this.state.dataSource.cloneWithRows(detailItems)
    });

And the ListView-Rows are rendered with stuff like:

        return (
            <TouchableHighlight underlayColor='#dddddd'>
                <View style={styles.infoRow}>
                    <Icon
                                name={item.icon}
                                size={30}
                                color='gray'
                                style={styles.contactIcon}
                                />
                    <View style={{ flex: 1}}>
                        <Text style={styles.headline}>{item.headline}</Text>
                        <Text style={styles.details}>{item.text}</Text>
                    </View>
                    <View style={styles.separator}/>
                </View>
            </TouchableHighlight>
        );

Everything works fine and as expected, except the warning which seems to be complete nonsense to me.

Adding a key-property to my "DetailItem"-Class didn't solve the issue.

This is, what really will be passed to the ListView as a result of "cloneWithRows":

_dataBlob: 
I/ReactNativeJS( 1293):    { s1: 
I/ReactNativeJS( 1293):       [ { key: 2,
I/ReactNativeJS( 1293):           type: 'plain',
I/ReactNativeJS( 1293):           text: 'xxxxxxxxxx',
I/ReactNativeJS( 1293):           headline: '',
I/ReactNativeJS( 1293):           icon: '' },
I/ReactNativeJS( 1293):         { key: 3, type: 'map', text: '', headline: '', icon: '' },
I/ReactNativeJS( 1293):         { key: 4,
I/ReactNativeJS( 1293):           type: 'contact',
I/ReactNativeJS( 1293):           text: '(xxxx) yyyyyy',
I/ReactNativeJS( 1293):           headline: 'Anrufen',
I/ReactNativeJS( 1293):           icon: 'fontawesome|phone' },
I/ReactNativeJS( 1293):         { key: 5,
I/ReactNativeJS( 1293):           type: 'contact',
I/ReactNativeJS( 1293):           text: '[email protected]',
I/ReactNativeJS( 1293):           headline: 'Email',
I/ReactNativeJS( 1293):           icon: 'fontawesome|envelope' },
I/ReactNativeJS( 1293):         { key: 6, type: 'moreInfo', text: '', headline: '', icon: '' } ] },

As one key see, each record has a key property. The warning still exists.

Answer 1

I've had exactly the same problem as you for a while now, and after looking at some of the suggestions above, I finally solved the problem.

It turns out (at least for me anyway), I needed to supply a key (a prop called 'key') to the component I am returning from my renderSeparator method. Adding a key to my renderRow or renderSectionHeader didn't do anything, but adding it to renderSeparator made the warning go away.

Hope that helps.