How to update parent's state in React?

Question

My structure looks as follows:

Component 1  

 - |- Component 2


 - - |- Component 4


 - - -  |- Component 5  

Component 3

Component 3 s

Answer 1

When ever you require to communicate between child to parent at any level down, then it's better to make use of context. In parent component define the context that can be invoked by the child such as

In parent component in your case component 3

static childContextTypes = {
        parentMethod: React.PropTypes.func.isRequired
      };

       getChildContext() {
        return {
          parentMethod: (parameter_from_child) => this.parentMethod(parameter_from_child)
        };
      }

parentMethod(parameter_from_child){
// update the state with parameter_from_child
}

Now in child component (component 5 in your case) , just tell this component that it want to use context of its parent.

 static contextTypes = {
       parentMethod: React.PropTypes.func.isRequired
     };
render(){
    return(
      this.context.parentMethod(new_state_value)}
         underlayColor='gray' >   

             update state in parent component               

      
)}

you can find Demo project at repo