scrollIntoView using React refs

Question

We are trying to scroll to a specific component when the user closes another component.

Our example is very similar to that down below, taken from https://reactjs.org/docs/refs-and-the-dom.html#exposing-dom-refs-to-parent-components

function CustomComponents(props) {
  const items = [1,2,3,4].map((x, i) => return (
    <div ref={props.inputRef} key={i}>
     x + hello
    </div>
  )

  return (
    <div>
      { items }
    </div>
  );
}

function Parent(props) {
  return (
    <div>
      <CustomComponents inputRef={props.inputRef} />
    </div>
  );
}


class Grandparent extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <Parent
        inputRef={el => this.inputElement = el}
      />
    );
  }
}

We are rendering a big list of cards and want to be able to scroll to a specific card by calling this.refs[elem].scrollIntoView()

But our problem is that calling this.refs returns an empty object at all levels, and so we are unable to attach to a specific element and then fire it when the user arrives back to view this component.

Would like some help on how one would go about solving this issue.

Answer 1

Where are you trying to call this.refs[elem].scrollIntoView()? You should be working with refs inside componentDidMount or componentDidUpdate, not inside the render method.