Getting DOM node from React child element

Question

Using the React.findDOMNode method that was introduced in v0.13.0 I am able to get the DOM node of each child component that was passed into a parent by mapping over this.props.children.

However, if some of the children happen to be React Elements rather than Components (e.g. one of the children is a <div> created via JSX) React throws an invariant violation error.

Is there a way to get the correct DOM node of each child after mount regardless of what class the child is?

Answer 1

this.props.children should either be a ReactElement or an array of ReactElement, but not components.

To get the DOM nodes of the children elements, you need to clone them and assign them a new ref.

render() {   return (     <div>       {React.Children.map(this.props.children, (element, idx) => {         return React.cloneElement(element, { ref: idx });       })}     </div>   ); } 

You can then access the child components via this.refs[childIdx], and retrieve their DOM nodes via ReactDOM.findDOMNode(this.refs[childIdx]).