how to render child components in react.js recursively

Question

I wanted to recursively add a react component from within its own component. I saw this example of a tree component which was mapping through the child TreeNodes and adding

Answer 1

If I create the child nodes as an object at the top of the render method, it works fine.

export default class extends React.Component {
  let replies = null
  if(this.props.replies){
    replies = this.props.replies.map((reply) => {
      return (
        <Comment author={reply.author} body={reply.body} />
      )
    })
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <div className="comment">
        <div className="replies">{ replies }</div>
      </div>
    )
  }
}

Answer 2

Here's an alternative in ES6:

import React, { Component, PropTypes } from 'react'

export default class Comments extends Component {

  render() {

    const { children } = this.props

    return (
      <div className="comments">
        {children.map(comment =>
          <div key={comment.id} className="comment">
            <span>{comment.content}</span>
            {comment.children && <Comments children={comment.children}/>}
          </div>
        )}
      </div>
    )

  }

}

Comments.propTypes = {
  children: PropTypes.array.isRequired
}

And is some other component:

<Comments children={post.comments}/>

Answer 3

The easiest way is to create a function in the class which returns an instance of your class:

RecursiveComponent.rt.js:

var RecursiveComponent = React.createClass({
 render: function() {
  // JSX
  ....
 },
 renderRecursive: function(param1)
   return React.createElement(RecursiveComponent, {param1: param1});

});

if you use react-templates library:

RecursiveComponent.rt:

<div>
  ...
  <div rt-repeat="recursiveChild in this.props.recursiveItem.recursiveChilds">
            {this.renderRecursive(recursiveChild)}
  </div>
</div>