Dynamically add child components in React

Question

My goal is to add components dynamically on a page/parent component.

I started with some basic example template like this:

main.js:

var App = require('./App.js');
var SampleComponent = require('./SampleComponent.js');
ReactDOM.render(<App/>, document.body);
ReactDOM.render(<SampleComponent name="SomeName"/>, document.getElementById('myId'));

App.js:

var App = React.createClass({
    render: function() {
        return (
            <div>
                <h1>App main component! </h1>
                <div id="myId">myId div</div>
            </div>

        );
    }

});

SampleComponent.js:

var SampleComponent = React.createClass({
    render: function() {
        return (
            <div>
                <h1>Sample Component! </h1>
            </div>
        );
    }
});

Here SampleComponent is mounted to <div id="myId"></div> node, which is pre-written in App.js template. But what if I need to add indefinite number of components to App component? Obviously I cannot have all the required divs sitting there.

After reading some tutorials I still have no understanding of how components are created and added to parent component dynamically. What is a way of doing it?

Answer 1

You need to pass your components as children, like this:

var App = require('./App.js');
var SampleComponent = require('./SampleComponent.js');
ReactDOM.render(
    <App>
        <SampleComponent name="SomeName"/> 
    <App>, 
    document.body
);

And then append them in the component's body:

var App = React.createClass({
    render: function() {
        return (
            <div>
                <h1>App main component! </h1>
                {
                    this.props.children
                }
            </div>
        );
    }
});

You don't need to manually manipulate HTML code, React will do that for you. If you want to add some child components, you just need to change props or state it depends. For example:

var App = React.createClass({

    getInitialState: function(){
        return [
            {id:1,name:"Some Name"}
        ]
    },

    addChild: function() {
        // State change will cause component re-render
        this.setState(this.state.concat([
            {id:2,name:"Another Name"}
        ]))
    }

    render: function() {
        return (
            <div>
                <h1>App main component! </h1>
                <button onClick={this.addChild}>Add component</button>
                {
                    this.state.map((item) => (
                        <SampleComponent key={item.id} name={item.name}/>
                    ))
                }
            </div>
        );
    }

});