Call a React component method from outside

Question

I want to call a method exposed by a React component from the instance of a React Element.

For example, in this jsfiddle. I want to call the alertMessage

Answer 1

class AppProvider extends Component {
  constructor() {
    super();

    window.alertMessage = this.alertMessage.bind(this);
  }

  alertMessage() {
    console.log('Hello World');
 }
}

You can call this method from the window by using window.alertMessage().

Answer 2

You can do like

import React from 'react';

class Header extends React.Component{

    constructor(){
        super();
        window.helloComponent = this;
    }

    alertMessage(){
       console.log("Called from outside");
    }

    render(){

      return (
      <AppBar style={{background:'#000'}}>
        Hello
      </AppBar>
      )
    }
}

export default Header;

Now from outside of this component you can called like this below

window.helloComponent.alertMessage();

Answer 3

I use this helper method to render components and return an component instance. Methods can be called on that instance.

static async renderComponentAt(componentClass, props, parentElementId){
         let componentId = props.id;
        if(!componentId){
            throw Error('Component has no id property. Please include id:"...xyz..." to component properties.');
        }

        let parentElement = document.getElementById(parentElementId);

        return await new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
            props.ref = (component)=>{
                resolve(component);
            };
            let element = React.createElement(componentClass, props, null);
            ReactDOM.render(element, parentElement);
        });
    }

Answer 4

With React hook - useRef

const MyComponent = ({myRef}) => {
  const handleClick = () => alert('hello world')
  myRef.current.handleClick = handleClick
  return (<button onClick={handleClick}>Original Button</button>)
}

MyComponent.defaultProps = {
  myRef: {current: {}}
}

const MyParentComponent = () => {
  const myRef = React.useRef({})
  return (
    <>
      <MyComponent 
        myRef={myRef}
      />
      <button onClick={myRef.current.handleClick}>
        Additional Button
      </button>
    </>
  )
}

Good Luck...

Answer 5

It appears statics are deprecated, and the other methods of exposing some functions with render seem convoluted. Meanwhile, this Stack Overflow answer about debugging React, while seeming hack-y, did the job for me.