Controlled / Uncontrolled React Components

Solomon Hawk, Senior Developer

Article Category: #Code

Posted on

Ever wondered how to author your own controlled or uncontrolled components?

Some Background #

If you're new to React application development, you might be asking yourself, "What are controlled and uncontrolled components, anyway?" I suggest taking a look at the docs linked above for a little extra context.

The need for controlled and uncontrolled components in React apps arises from the behavior of certain DOM elements such as <input>, <textarea>, and <select> that by default maintain state (user input) within the DOM layer. Controlled components instead keep that state inside of React either in the component rendering the input, a parent component somewhere in the tree, or a flux store.

However this pattern can be extended to cover certain use cases that are unrelated to DOM state. For example, in a recent application I needed to create a nest-able Collapsible component that supported two modes of operation: in some cases it needed to be controlled externally (expanded through user interaction with other areas of the app) and in other cases it could simply manage it's own state.

Inputs in React #

For inputs in React, it works like this.

  1. To create an uncontrolled input: set a defaultValue prop. In this case the React component will manage the value of its underlying DOM node within local component state. Implementation details aside, you can think of this as calls to setState() within the component to update state.value which is assigned to the DOM input.

  2. To create a controlled input: set the value and onChange() props. In this case, React will always assign the value prop as the input's value whenever the value prop changes. When a user changes the input's value, the onChange() callback will be called which must eventually result in a new value prop being sent to the input. Consequently, if onChange() isn't wired up correctly, the input is effectively read-only; a user cannot change the value of the input because whenever the input is rendered it's value is set to the value prop.

The General Pattern #

Fortunately it's trivial to author a component with this behavior. The key is to create a component interface that accepts one of two possible configurations of properties.

  1. To create a controlled component, define the property you want to control as defaultX. When a component is instantiated and is given a defaultX prop, it will begin with the value of that property and will manage its own state over the lifetime of the component (making calls to setState() in response to user interaction). This covers use case 1: the component does not need to be externally controlled and state can be local to the component.

  2. To create an uncontrolled component, define the property you want to control as x. When a component is instantiated and is given an x prop and a callback to change x, (e.g. toggleX(), if x is a boolean) it will begin with the value of that prop. When a user interacts with the component, instead of a setState() call within, the component must call the callback toggleX() to request that state is externally updated. After that update propagates, the containing component should end up re-rendering and sending a new x property to the controlled component.

The Collapsible Interface #

For the Collapsible implementation, I was only dealing with a boolean property so I chose to use collapsed/defaultCollapsed and toggleCollapsed() for my component interface.

  1. When given a defaultCollapsed prop, the Collapsible will begin in the state declared by the prop but will manage it's own state over the lifetime of the component. Clicking on the child button will trigger a setState() that updates the internal component state.

  2. When given a collapsed boolean prop and a toggleCollapsed() callback prop, the Collapsible will similarly begin in the state declared by collapsed but, when clicked, will only call the toggleCollapsed() callback. The expectation is that toggleCollapsed() will update state in an ancestor component which will cause the Collapsible to be re-rendered with a new collapsed property after the callback modifies state elsewhere in the application.

Implementation #

There is a dead-simple pattern within the component implementation that makes this work. The general idea is:

  1. When the component is instantiated, set its state to the value of x that was passed in or the default value for x. In the case of the Collapsible, the default value of defaultCollapsed is false.

  2. When rendering, if the x prop is defined, then respect it (controlled), otherwise use the local component value in this.state (uncontrolled). This means that in Collapsible's render method I determine the collapsed state as such:

let collapsed = this.props.hasOwnProperty('collapsed') ? this.props.collapsed : this.state.collapsed

With destructuring and default values, this becomes satisfyingly elegant:

// covers selecting the state for both the controlled and uncontrolled use cases
const {
  collapsed = this.state.collapsed,
  toggleCollapsed
} = this.props

The above says, "give me a binding called collapsed whose value is this.props.collapsed but, if that value is undefined, use this.state.collapsed instead".

Wrapping Up #

I hope you can see how simple and potentially useful it is to support both controlled and uncontrolled behaviors in your own components. I hope you have a clear understanding of why you might need to build components in this way and hopefully also how. Below I've included a the full source of Collapsible in case you're curious - it's pretty short.

/**
 * The Collapsible component is a higher order component that wraps a given
 * component with collapsible behavior. The wrapped component is responsible
 * for determining what to render based on the `collapsed` prop that will be
 * sent to it.
 */
import invariant from 'invariant'
import { createElement, Component } from 'react'
import getDisplayName from 'recompose/getDisplayName'
import hoistStatics from 'hoist-non-react-statics'
import PropTypes from 'prop-types'

export default function collapsible(WrappedComponent) {
  invariant(
    typeof WrappedComponent == 'function',
    `You must pass a component to the function returned by ` +
    `collapsible. Instead received ${JSON.stringify(WrappedComponent)}`
  )

  const wrappedComponentName = getDisplayName(WrappedComponent)
  const displayName = `Collapsible(${wrappedComponentName})`

  class Collapsible extends Component {

    static displayName = displayName
    static WrappedComponent = WrappedComponent

    static propTypes = {
      onToggle: PropTypes.func,
      collapsed: PropTypes.bool,
      defaultCollapsed: PropTypes.bool
    }

    static defaultProps = {
      onToggle: () => {},
      collapsed: undefined,
      defaultCollapsed: true
    }

    constructor(props, context) {
      super(props, context)

      this.state = {
        collapsed: props.defaultCollapsed
      }
    }

    render() {
      const {
        collapsed = this.state.collapsed, // the magic
        defaultCollapsed,
        ...props
      } = this.props

      return createElement(WrappedComponent, {
        ...props,
        collapsed,
        toggleCollapsed: this.toggleCollapsed
      })
    }

    toggleCollapsed = () => {
      this.setState(({ collapsed }) => ({ collapsed: !collapsed }))
      this.props.onToggle()
    }
  }

  return hoistStatics(Collapsible, WrappedComponent)
}

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Solomon Hawk

Solomon is a developer in our Durham, NC, office. He focuses on JavaScript development for clients such as ID.me. He loves distilling complex challenges into simple, elegant solutions.

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