SVG use tag and ReactJS

ryanzec picture ryanzec · Nov 8, 2014 · Viewed 72.3k times · Source

So normally to include most of my SVG icons that require simple styling, I do:

<svg>
    <use xlink:href="/svg/svg-sprite#my-icon" />
</svg>

Now I have been playing with ReactJS as of late evaluating it as a possible component in my new front-end development stack however I noticed that in its list of supported tags/attributes, neither use or xlink:href are supported.

Is it possible to use svg sprites and load them in this way in ReactJS?

Answer

Jon Surrell picture Jon Surrell · Oct 7, 2015

MDN says that xlink:href is deprecated in favor of href. You should be able to use the href attribute directly. The example below includes both versions.

As of React 0.14, xlink:href is available via React as the property xlinkHref. It is mentioned as one of the "notable enhancements" in the release notes for 0.14.

<!-- REACT JSX: -->
<svg>
  <use xlinkHref='/svg/svg-sprite#my-icon' />
</svg>

<!-- RENDERS AS: -->
<svg>
  <use xlink:href="/svg/svg-sprite#my-icon"></use>
</svg>

Update 2018-06-09: Added info about href vs xlink:href attributes and updated example to include both. Thanks @devuxer

Update 3: At time of writing, React master SVG properties can be found here.

Update 2: It appears that all svg attributes should now be available via react (see merged svg attribute PR).

Update 1: You may want to keep an eye on the svg related issue on GitHub for additional SVG support landing. There are developments in the works.

Demo:

const svgReactElement = (
  <svg
    viewBox="0 0 1340 667"
    width="100"
    height="100"
  >
    <image width="667" height="667" href="https://i.imgur.com/w7GCRPb.png"/>
    { /* Deprecated xlink:href usage */ }
    <image width="667" height="667" x="673" xlinkHref="https://i.imgur.com/w7GCRPb.png"/>
  </svg>
);

var resultHtml = ReactDOMServer.renderToStaticMarkup(svgReactElement);
document.getElementById('render-result-html').innerHTML = escapeHtml(resultHtml);

ReactDOM.render(svgReactElement, document.getElementById('render-result') );

function escapeHtml(unsafe) { return unsafe.replace(/&/g, "&amp;").replace(/</g, "&lt;").replace(/>/g, "&gt;").replace(/"/g, "&quot;").replace(/'/g, "&#039;"); }
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react/16.4.1/umd/react.development.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react-dom/16.4.1/umd/react-dom.development.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react-dom/16.4.1/umd/react-dom-server.browser.development.js"></script>

<h2>Render result of rendering:</h2>
<pre>&lt;svg
  viewBox=&quot;0 0 1340 667&quot;
  width=&quot;100&quot;
  height=&quot;100&quot;
&gt;
  &lt;image width=&quot;667&quot; height=&quot;667&quot; href=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/w7GCRPb.png&quot;/&gt;
  { /* Deprecated xlink:href usage */ }
  &lt;image width=&quot;667&quot; height=&quot;667&quot; x=&quot;673&quot; xlinkHref=&quot;https://i.imgur.com/w7GCRPb.png&quot;/&gt;
&lt;/svg&gt;</pre>

<h2><code>ReactDOMServer.renderToStaticMarkup()</code> output:</h2>
<pre id="render-result-html"></pre>
<h2><code>ReactDOM.render()</code> output:</h2>
<div id="render-result"></div>