How to use children with React Stateless Functional Component in TypeScript?

Question

You can use React.PropsWithChildren<P> type for your props:

interface MyProps { }

function MyComponent(props: React.PropsWithChildren<MyProps>) {
  return <div>{props.children}</div>;
}

React 16.8 Update: Since React 16.8, the names React.SFC and React.StatelessComponent are deprecated. Actually, they have become aliases for React.FunctionComponent type or React.FC for short.

You would use them the same way though:

const MyStatelessComponent : React.FunctionComponent<MyProps> = props =>
    <div>
        <p>{props.propInMyProps}</p>
        <p>{props.children}</p>
    </div>

Before React 16.8 (Older):

For now, you can use the React.StatelessComponent<> type, as:

const MyStatelessComponent : React.StatelessComponent<{}> = props =>
    <div>{props.children}</div>

What I have added there is setting the return type of the component to React.StatelessComponent type.

For a component with your own custom props (like MyProps interface):

const MyStatelessComponent : React.StatelessComponent<MyProps> = props =>
    <div>
        <p>{props.propInMyProps}</p>
        <p>{props.children}</p>
    </div>

Now, props has got the children property as well as those from MyProps interface.

I checked this in typescript version 2.0.7

Additionally, you can use React.SFC instead of React.StatelessComponent for brevity.

Simpler answer: Use ReactNode:

interface MyProps {
  children?: React.ReactNode
}

If children is optional or not (i.e. having ? or not) depends on your component. The ? is the most concise way to express that, so nothing wrong with that.

On history: This was not necessarily the correct answer back when originally asked: The type ReactNode was added in (almost) its current form in March 2017 by this pull request only, but almost everyone reading this today should be on a modern enough version of React.

Lastly, about passing children as "attribute" (which, in React lingo, would be passing it as "prop", not attribute): It is possible, but in most cases reads better when passing JSX children:

<MyComponent>
  <p>This is part of the children.</p>
</MyComponent>

reads more easily than

<MyComponent children={<p>This is part of the children.</p>} />

You can just add children to the component and if it is connected to a container that is all you need.

const MyComponent = ({ 
   children  
}) => {
  return <div>{children}</div>

}