How to manually trigger click event in ReactJS?

Question

How can I manually trigger a click event in ReactJS? When a user clicks on element1, I want to automatically trigger a click on the input tag.

<div className="div-margins logoContainer">
  <div id="element1" className="content" onClick={this.uploadLogoIcon}>
    <div className="logoBlank" />
  </div>
  <input accept="image/*" type="file" className="hide"/>
</div>

Answer 1

You could use the ref prop to acquire a reference to the underlying HTMLInputElement object through a callback, store the reference as a class property, then use that reference to later trigger a click from your event handlers using the HTMLElement.click method.

In your render method:

<input ref={input => this.inputElement = input} ... />

In your event handler:

this.inputElement.click();

Full example:

class MyComponent extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <div onClick={this.handleClick}>
        <input ref={input => this.inputElement = input} />
      </div>
    );
  }

  handleClick = (e) => {
    this.inputElement.click();
  }
}

Note the ES6 arrow function that provides the correct lexical scope for this in the callback. Also note, that the object you acquire this way is an object akin to what you would acquire using document.getElementById, i.e. the actual DOM-node.

Answer 2

Got the following to work May 2018 with ES6 React Docs as a reference: https://reactjs.org/docs/refs-and-the-dom.html

import React, { Component } from "react";
class AddImage extends Component {
  constructor(props) {
    super(props);
    this.fileUpload = React.createRef();
    this.showFileUpload = this.showFileUpload.bind(this);
  }
  showFileUpload() {
    this.fileUpload.current.click();
  }
  render() {
    return (
      <div className="AddImage">
        <input
          type="file"
          id="my_file"
          style={{ display: "none" }}
          ref={this.fileUpload}
        />
        <input
          type="image"
          src="http://www.graphicssimplified.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/upload-cloud.png"
          width="30px"
          onClick={this.showFileUpload}
        />
      </div>
    );
  }
}
export default AddImage;

Answer 3

You can use ref callback which will return the node. Call click() on that node to do a programmatic click.

Getting the div node

clickDiv(el) {
  el.click()
}

Setting a ref to the div node

<div 
  id="element1"
  className="content"
  ref={this.clickDiv}
  onClick={this.uploadLogoIcon}
>

Check the fiddle

https://jsfiddle.net/pranesh_ravi/5skk51ap/1/

Hope it helps!

Answer 4

Try this and let me know if it does not work on your end:

<input type="checkbox" name='agree' ref={input => this.inputElement = input}/>
<div onClick={() => this.inputElement.click()}>Click</div>

Clicking on the div should simulate a click on the input element

Answer 5

How about just plain old js ? example:

autoClick = () => {
 if (something === something) {
    var link = document.getElementById('dashboard-link');
    link.click();
  }
};
  ......      
var clickIt = this.autoClick();            
return (
  <div>
     <Link id="dashboard-link" to={'/dashboard'}>Dashboard</Link>
  </div>
);