How to loop and render elements in React.js without an array of objects to map?

Question

Updated: As of React > 0.16

Render method does not necessarily have to return a single element. An array can also be returned.

var indents = [];
for (var i = 0; i < this.props.level; i++) {
  indents.push(<span className='indent' key={i}></span>);
}
return indents;

OR

return this.props.level.map((item, index) => (
    <span className="indent" key={index}>
        {index}
    </span>
));

Docs here explaining about JSX children

---

OLD:

You can use one loop instead

var indents = [];
for (var i = 0; i < this.props.level; i++) {
  indents.push(<span className='indent' key={i}></span>);
}
return (
   <div>
    {indents}
    "Some text value"
   </div>
);

You can also use .map and fancy es6

return (
   <div>
    {this.props.level.map((item, index) => (
       <span className='indent' key={index} />
    ))}
    "Some text value"
   </div>
);

Also, you have to wrap the return value in a container. I used div in the above example

As the docs say here

Currently, in a component's render, you can only return one node; if you have, say, a list of divs to return, you must wrap your components within a div, span or any other component.

Here is more functional example with some ES6 features:

'use strict';

const React = require('react');

function renderArticles(articles) {
    if (articles.length > 0) {      
        return articles.map((article, index) => (
            <Article key={index} article={article} />
        ));
    }
    else return [];
}

const Article = ({article}) => {
    return ( 
        <article key={article.id}>
            <a href={article.link}>{article.title}</a>
            <p>{article.description}</p>
        </article>
    );
};

const Articles = React.createClass({
    render() {
        const articles = renderArticles(this.props.articles);

        return (
            <section>
                { articles }
            </section>
        );
    }
});

module.exports = Articles;

Array.from() takes an iterable object to convert to an array and an optional map function. You could create an object with a .length property as follows:

return Array.from({length: this.props.level}, (item, index) => 
  <span className="indent" key={index}></span>
);

I'm using Object.keys(chars).map(...) to loop in render

// chars = {a:true, b:false, ..., z:false}

render() {
    return (
       <div>
        {chars && Object.keys(chars).map(function(char, idx) {
            return <span key={idx}>{char}</span>;
        }.bind(this))}
        "Some text value"
       </div>
    );
}

You can still use map if you can afford to create a makeshift array:

{
    new Array(this.props.level).fill(0).map((_, index) => (
        <span className='indent' key={index}></span>
    ))
}

This works because new Array(n).fill(x) creates an array of size n filled with x, which can then aid map.