Using onBlur with JSX and React

Question

I am trying to create a password confirmation feature that renders an error only after a user leaves the confirmation field. I'm working with Facebook's React JS. This is my input component:

<input
    type="password"
    placeholder="Password (confirm)"
    valueLink={this.linkState('password2')}
    onBlur={this.renderPasswordConfirmError()}
 />

This is renderPasswordConfirmError :

renderPasswordConfirmError: function() {
  if (this.state.password !== this.state.password2) {
    return (
      <div>
        <label className="error">Please enter the same password again.</label>
      </div>
    );
  }  
  return null;
},

When I run the page the message is not displayed when conflicting passwords are entered.

Answer 1

There are a few problems here.

1: onBlur expects a callback, and you are calling renderPasswordConfirmError and using the return value, which is null.

2: you need a place to render the error.

3: you need a flag to track "and I validating", which you would set to true on blur. You can set this to false on focus if you want, depending on your desired behavior.

handleBlur: function () {
  this.setState({validating: true});
},
render: function () {
  return <div>
    ...
    <input
        type="password"
        placeholder="Password (confirm)"
        valueLink={this.linkState('password2')}
        onBlur={this.handleBlur}
     />
    ...
    {this.renderPasswordConfirmError()}
  </div>
},
renderPasswordConfirmError: function() {
  if (this.state.validating && this.state.password !== this.state.password2) {
    return (
      <div>
        <label className="error">Please enter the same password again.</label>
      </div>
    );
  }  
  return null;
},