Can you use es6 import alias syntax for React Components?

Jim picture Jim · Apr 2, 2017 · Viewed 92.5k times · Source

I'm trying to do something like the following, however it returns null:

import { Button as styledButton } from 'component-library'

then attempting to render it as:

import React, { PropTypes } from "react";
import cx from 'classNames';

import { Button as styledButton } from 'component-library';

export default class Button extends React.Component {
    constructor(props){
        super(props)
    }
    render() {
        return (
                <styledButton {...this.props}></styledButton>
        )
    }
}

The reason is, I need to import the Button component from a library, and also export a wrapper component with the same name but maintaining the functionality from the imported component. If I leave it at import { Button } from component library then of course, I get a multiple declaration error.

Any ideas?

Answer

chris picture chris · Apr 2, 2017

Your syntax is valid. JSX is syntax sugar for React.createElement(type) so as long as type is a valid React type, it can be used in JSX "tags". If Button is null, your import is not correct. Maybe Button is a default export from component-library. Try:

import {default as StyledButton} from "component-library";

The other possibility is your library is using commonjs exports i.e. module.exports = foo. In this case you can import like this:

import * as componentLibrary from "component-library";

Update

Since this is a popular answer, here a few more tidbits:

export default Button              -> import Button from './button'
                                      const Button = require('./button').default
         
export const Button                -> import { Button } from './button'
                                      const { Button } = require('./button')
         
export { Button }                  -> import { Button } from './button'
                                      const { Button } = require('./button')
         
module.exports.Button              -> import { Button } from './button'
                                      const { Button } = require('./button')

module.exports.Button = Button     -> import { Button } from './button'
                                      const { Button } = require('./button')

module.exports = Button            -> import * as Button from './button'
                                      const Button = require('./button')