Higher-order Components

Learn how to use Flow to type React higher-order components

A popular pattern in React is the higher-order component pattern, so it’s important that we can provide effective types for higher-order components in Flow. If you don’t already know what a higher-order component is then make sure to read the React documentation on higher-order components before continuing.

In 0.89.0, we introduced React.AbstractComponent, which gives you more expressive power when writing HOCs and library definitions.

Let’s take a look at how you can type some example HOCs.

The Trivial HOC

Let’s start with the simplest HOC:

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//@flow
import * as React from 'react';

function trivialHOC<Config: {}>(
  Component: React.AbstractComponent<Config>
): React.AbstractComponent<Config> {
  return Component;
}

This is a basic template for what your HOCs might look like. At runtime, this HOC doesn’t do anything at all. Let’s take a look at some more complex examples.

Injecting Props

A common use case for higher-order components is to inject a prop. The HOC automatically sets a prop and returns a component which no longer requires that prop. For example, consider a navigation prop, or in the case of react-redux a store prop. How would one type this?

To remove a prop from the config, we can take a component that includes the prop and return a component that does not. It’s best to construct these types using object type spread.

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//@flow
import * as React from 'react';

type InjectedProps = {| foo: number |}

function injectProp<Config>(
  Component: React.AbstractComponent<{| ...Config, ...InjectedProps |}>
): React.AbstractComponent<Config> {
  return function WrapperComponent(
    props: Config,
  ) {
    return <Component {...props} foo={42} />;
  };
}

class MyComponent extends React.Component<{|
  a: number,
  b: number,
  ...InjectedProps,
|}> {}

const MyEnhancedComponent = injectProp(MyComponent);

// We don't need to pass in `foo` even though `MyComponent` requires it.
<MyEnhancedComponent a={1} b={2} />;

Preserving the Instance Type of a Component

Recall that the instance type of a function component is void. Our example above wraps a component in a function, so the returned component has the instance type void.

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//@flow
import * as React from 'react';

type InjectedProps = {| foo: number |}

function injectProp<Config>(
  Component: React.AbstractComponent<{| ...Config, ...InjectedProps |}>
): React.AbstractComponent<Config> {
  return function WrapperComponent(
    props: Config,
  ) {
    return <Component {...props} foo={42} />;
  };
}

class MyComponent extends React.Component<{|
  a: number,
  b: number,
  ...InjectedProps,
|}> {}

const MyEnhancedComponent = injectProp(MyComponent);

// If we create a ref object for the component, it will never be assigned
// an instance of MyComponent!
const ref = React.createRef<MyComponent>();

// Error, mixed is incompatible with MyComponent.
<MyEnhancedComponent ref={ref} a={1} b={2} />;
Cannot create `MyEnhancedComponent` element because in property `ref`: [incompatible-type] Either mixed [1] is incompatible with `MyComponent` [2] in property `current`. Or a call signature declaring the expected parameter / return type is missing in object type [3] but exists in function type [4].

We get this error message because React.AbstractComponent<Config> doesn’t set the Instance type parameter, so it is automatically set to mixed. If we wanted to preserve the instance type of the component, we can use React.forwardRef:

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//@flow
import * as React from 'react';

type InjectedProps = {| foo: number |}

function injectAndPreserveInstance<Config, Instance>(
  Component: React.AbstractComponent<{| ...Config, ...InjectedProps |}, Instance>
): React.AbstractComponent<Config, Instance> {
  return React.forwardRef<Config, Instance>((props, ref) =>
      <Component ref={ref} foo={3} {...props} />
  );
}

class MyComponent extends React.Component<{
  a: number,
  b: number,
  ...InjectedProps,
}> {}

const MyEnhancedComponent = injectAndPreserveInstance(MyComponent);

const ref = React.createRef<MyComponent>();

// All good! The ref is forwarded.
<MyEnhancedComponent ref={ref} a={1} b={2} />;

Exporting Wrapped Components

If you try to export a wrapped component, chances are that you’ll run into a missing annotation error:

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//@flow
import * as React from 'react';

function trivialHOC<Config: {}>(
  Component: React.AbstractComponent<Config>,
): React.AbstractComponent<Config> {
  return Component;
}

type DefaultProps = {| foo: number |};
type Props = {...DefaultProps, bar: number};

class MyComponent extends React.Component<Props> {
  static defaultProps: DefaultProps = {foo: 3};
}

// Error, missing annotation for Config.
const MyEnhancedComponent = trivialHOC(MyComponent);

module.exports = MyEnhancedComponent;
Cannot build a typed interface for this module. You should annotate the exports of this module with types. Cannot determine the type of this call expression. Please provide an annotation, e.g., by adding a type cast around this expression. [signature-verification-failure]

If your component has no defaultProps, you can use Props as a type argument for Config.

If your component does have defaultProps, you don’t want to just add Props as a type argument to trivialHOC because that will get rid of the defaultProps information that flow has about your component.

This is where React.Config<Props, DefaultProps> comes in handy! We can use the type for Props and DefaultProps to calculate the Config type for our component.

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//@flow
import * as React from 'react';

function trivialHOC<Config: {}>(
  Component: React.AbstractComponent<Config>,
): React.AbstractComponent<Config> {
  return Component;
}

type DefaultProps = {| foo: number |};
type Props = {...DefaultProps, bar: number};

class MyComponent extends React.Component<Props> {
  static defaultProps: DefaultProps = {foo: 3};
}

const MyEnhancedComponent = trivialHOC<React.Config<Props, DefaultProps>>(MyComponent);

// Ok!
module.exports = MyEnhancedComponent;
Cannot build a typed interface for this module. You should annotate the exports of this module with types. Cannot determine the type of this call expression. Please provide an annotation, e.g., by adding a type cast around this expression. [signature-verification-failure]
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