patternsdev Render Props Pattern
Table of Contents
Another way of making components very reusable, is by using the render prop pattern. A render prop is a prop on a component, which value is a function that returns a JSX element. The component itself does not render anything besides the render prop. Instead, the component simply calls the render prop, instead of implementing its own rendering logic.
Imagine that we have a Title component. In this case, the Title component shouldn't do anything besides rendering the value that we pass. We can use a render prop for this! Let's pass the value that we want the Title component to render to the render prop.
When to Use
- Use this when you need to share stateful logic between components with different rendering needs
- This is helpful when the HOC pattern creates naming collision issues or overly deep nesting
When NOT to Use
- When custom hooks can replace the pattern — hooks provide the same logic reuse without render prop nesting
- When it creates deeply nested JSX that becomes hard to read and maintain
- When the shared logic is simple enough for a plain utility function or hook
Instructions
- Pass a function as a
renderprop (orchildrenprop) that receives data and returns JSX - Prefer custom Hooks over render props in most modern React code
- Use the children-as-a-function pattern as a cleaner alternative to explicit
renderprops - Avoid deeply nesting multiple render prop components — refactor to Hooks instead
Details
<Title render={() => <h1>I am a render prop!</h1>} />
Within the Title component, we can render this data by returning the invoked render prop!
const Title = (props) => props.render();
Although they're called render props, a render prop doesn't have to be called render. Any prop that renders JSX is considered a render prop!
A component that takes a render prop usually does a lot more than simply invoking the render prop. Instead, we usually want to pass data from the component that takes the render prop, to the element that we pass as a render prop!
function Component(props) {
const data = { ... }
return props.render(data)
}
The render prop can now receive this value that we passed as its argument.
<Component render={data => <ChildComponent data={data} />}
Let's look at an example! We have a simple app, where a user can type a temperature in Celsius. The app shows the value of this temperature in Fahrenheit and Kelvin.
Currently there's a problem. The stateful Input component contains the value of the user's input, meaning that the Fahrenheit and Kelvin component don't have access to the user's input!
Lifting state
One way to make the users input available to both the Fahrenheit and Kelvin component is to lift the state.
In this case, we have a stateful Input component. However, the sibling components Fahrenheit and Kelvin also need access to this data. Instead of having a stateful Input component, we can lift the state up to the first common ancestor component that has a connection to Input, Fahrenheit and Kelvin: the App component in this case!
function Input({ value, handleChange }) {
return <input value={value} => handleChange(e.target.value)} />;
}
export default function App() {
const [value, setValue] = useState("");
return (
<div className="App">
<h1>☃️ Temperature Converter 🌞</h1>
<Input value={value} handleChange={setValue} />
<Kelvin value={value} />
<Fahrenheit value={value} />
</div>
);
}
Although this is a valid solution, it can be tricky to lift state in larger applications with components that handle many children. Each state change could cause a re-render of all the children, even the ones that don't handle the data, which could negatively affect the performance of your app.
Render props
Instead, we can use render props! Let's change the Input component in a way that it can receive render props.
function Input(props) {
const [value, setValue] = useState("");
return (
<>
<input
type="text"
value={value}
=> setValue(e.target.value)}
placeholder="Temp in °C"
/>
{props.render(value)}
</>
);
}
export default function App() {
return (
<div className="App">
<h1>☃️ Temperature Converter 🌞</h1>
<Input
render={(value) => (
<>
<Kelvin value={value} />
<Fahrenheit value={value} />
</>
)}
/>
</div>
);
}
Perfect, the Kelvin and Fahrenheit components now have access to the value of the user's input!
Children as a function
Besides regular JSX components, we can pass functions as children to React components. This function is available to us through the children prop, which is technically also a render prop.
Let's change the Input component. Instead of explicitly passing the render prop, we'll just pass a function as a child for the Input component.
export default function App() {
return (
<div className="App">
<h1>☃️ Temperature Converter 🌞</h1>
<Input>
{(value) => (
<>
<Kelvin value={value} />
<Fahrenheit value={value} />
</>
)}
</Input>
</div>
);
}
We have access to this function, through the props.children prop that's available on the Input component. Instead of calling props.render with the value of the user input, we'll call props.children with the value of the user input.
function Input(props) {
const [value, setValue] = useState("");
return (
<>
<input
type="text"
value={value}
=> setValue(e.target.value)}
placeholder="Temp in °C"
/>
{props.children(value)}
</>
);
}
Great, this way the Kelvin and Fahrenheit component have access to the value, without having to worry about the name of the render prop.
Hooks
In some cases, we can replace render props with Hooks. A good example of this is Apollo Client.
One way to use Apollo Client is through the Mutation and Query components. In order to pass data down from the Mutation component to the elements that need the data, we pass a function as a child. The function receives the value of the data through its arguments.
<Mutation mutation={...} variables={...}>
{addMessage => <div className="input-row">...</div>}
</Mutation>
Although we can still use the render prop pattern and is often preferred compared to the higher order component pattern, it has its downsides.
One of the downsides is deep component nesting. We can nest multiple Mutation or Query components, if a component needs access to multiple mutations or queries.
<Mutation mutation={FIRST_MUTATION}>
{(firstMutation) => (
<Mutation mutation={SECOND_MUTATION}>
{(secondMutation) => (
<Mutation mutation={THIRD_MUTATION}>
{(thirdMutation) => (
<Element
firstMutation={firstMutation}
secondMutation={secondMutation}
thirdMutation={thirdMutation}
/>
)}
</Mutation>
)}
</Mutation>
)}
</Mutation>
After the release of Hooks, Apollo added Hooks support to the Apollo Client library. Instead of using the Mutation and Query render props, developers can now directly access the data through the hooks that the library provides.
By using the useQuery hook, we reduced the amount of code that was needed in order to provide the data to the component.
Pros
Sharing logic and data among several components is easy with the render props pattern. Components can be made very reusable, by using a render or children prop. Although the Higher Order Component pattern mainly solves the same issues, namely reusability and sharing data, the render props pattern solves some of the issues we could encounter by using the HOC pattern.
The issue of naming collisions that we can run into by using the HOC pattern no longer applies by using the render props pattern, since we don't automatically merge props. We explicitly pass the props down to the child components, with the value provided by the parent component.
Since we explicitly pass props, we solve the HOC's implicit props issue. The props that should get passed down to the element, are all visible in the render prop's arguments list. This way, we know exactly where certain props come from.
We can separate our app's logic from rendering components through render props. The stateful component that receives a render prop can pass the data onto stateless components, which merely render the data.
Cons
The issues that we tried to solve with render props, have largely been replaced by React Hooks. As Hooks changed the way we can add reusability and data sharing to components, they can replace the render props pattern in many cases.
Since we can't add lifecycle methods to a render prop, we can only use it on components that don't need to alter the data they receive.