Forwarding Refs

Ref forwarding is a technique for passing a ref through a component to one of its descendants. This technique can be particularly useful with higher-order components (also known as HOCs).

Let’s start with an example HOC that logs component props to the console:

function logProps(WrappedComponent) {
  class LogProps extends React.Component {
    componentDidUpdate(prevProps) {
      console.log('old props:', prevProps);
      console.log('new props:', this.props);
    }

    render() {
      return <WrappedComponent {...this.props} />;
    }
  }

  return LogProps;
}

The “logProps” HOC passes all props through to the component it wraps, so the rendered output will be the same. For example, we can use this HOC to log all props that get passed to our “fancy button” component:

class FancyButton extends React.Component {
  focus() {
    // ...
  }

  // ...
}

// Rather than exporting FancyButton, we export LogProps.
// It will render a FancyButton though.
export default logProps(FancyButton);

There is one caveat to the above example: refs will not get passed through. That’s because ref is not a prop. Like key, it’s handled differently by React. If you add a ref to a HOC, the ref will refer to the outermost container component, not the wrapped component.

This means that refs intended for our FancyButton component will actually be attached to the LogProps component:

import FancyButton from './FancyButton';

const ref = React.createRef();

// The FancyButton component we imported is the LogProps HOC.
// Even though the rendered output will be the same,
// Our ref will point to LogProps instead of the inner FancyButton component!
// This means we can't call e.g. ref.current.focus()
<FancyButton
  label="Click Me"
  handleClick={handleClick}
  ref={ref}
/>;

Fortunately, we can explicitly forward refs to the inner FancyButton component using the React.forwardRef API. React.forwardRef accepts a render function that receives props and ref parameters and returns a React node. For example:

function logProps(Component) {
  class LogProps extends React.Component {
    componentDidUpdate(prevProps) {
      console.log('old props:', prevProps);
      console.log('new props:', this.props);
    }

    render() {
      const {forwardedRef, ...rest} = this.props;

      // Assign the custom prop "forwardedRef" as a ref
      return <Component ref={forwardedRef} {...rest} />;
    }
  }

  // Note the second param "ref" provided by React.forwardRef.
  // We can pass it along to LogProps as a regular prop, e.g. "forwardedRef"
  // And it can then be attached to the Component.
  function forwardRef(props, ref) {
    return <LogProps {...props} forwardedRef={ref} />;
  }

  // These next lines are not necessary,
  // But they do give the component a better display name in DevTools,
  // e.g. "ForwardRef(logProps(MyComponent))"
  const name = Component.displayName || Component.name;
  forwardRef.displayName = `logProps(${name})`;

  return React.forwardRef(forwardRef);
}

Edit this page