Type checking props using PropTypes in React
JavaScript is not a statically typed language. A language is a statically typed if the type of a variable is known at compile-time instead of at run-time. Common examples of statically-typed languages include Java, C, C++, Swift, Kotlin and Scala.
JavaScript, in a sense, is a weakly typed language. This nature of JavaScript allows for a lot of flexibility in terms of implicit conversions.
So, if given:
let a = "5";
Here, you can say that a is a string. However, if you then write:
let b = a + 10;
Here, b is an int equal to 15, so a acted just like an int. Of course, you can then write:
let c = a + "Foo";
And c will equal “5Foo”, so a is again acting like a string.
Now, coming back to the point of this article. If you want to some add static type checking while working with React.js, you can accomplish this using PropTypes which comes in-built in React.
In React, props are the way to “inject” something into the component. So, it’s rather a good idea to validate things for the same. This is where PropTypes comes into picture.
PropTypes is a class which encompasses a range of validators that can be used to make sure the data you receive on your component is valid. In order to use PropTypes on the component, you can assign the special propTypes property on the component. For instance, take this example.
class Button extends React.Component {
render() {
return (
<button id={this.props.id}>{this.props.name}</button>
);
}
}
ReactDOM.render(
<Button name={'Submit!'} id={10} />,
document.getElementById('example')
);
Here, the Button component accepts two props: the one is name which is a string and the second one is id which is the id of the button. Now, if we want to enforce types on this props we could do using propTypes like so.
class Button extends React.Component {
render() {
return (
<button id={this.props.id}>{this.props.name}</button>
);
}
}
Button.propTypes = {
id: React.PropTypes.number,
name: React.PropTypes.string
};
ReactDOM.render(
<Button name={'Submit!'} id={10} />,
document.getElementById('example')
);
Note
From React v15.5,
PropTypescomes as a separate node library which you can install in your project bynpm install --save prop-typeswhich can be consumed like so:import PropTypes from 'prop-types';
The PropTypes class exports a range of validators that can be used to make sure the data you receive is valid. Here, we’ve assigned PropTypes.string to name and PropTypes.number to id prop.
When an invalid value is provided for either of props, a warning will be shown in the JavaScript console like so. For instance, if I provide a string to the id prop,
<Button name={'Submit!'} id={'myBtn'} />
It will throw the warning like so.
Warning: Failed prop type: Invalid prop `id` of type `string` supplied to `Button`, expected `number`.
in Button
We can also modify certain propTypes to be required by adding isRequired to the type like so.
Button.propTypes = {
id: React.PropTypes.number.isRequired,
name: React.PropTypes.string.isRequired
};
Default prop values using defaultProps
In case if you want to assign default values to the component’s props, React provides this provision as well. You can do this by assigning defaultProps property on the component like so.
// Code commented for brevity
Button.defaultProps = {
id: 10,
name: 'Submit!'
};
ReactDOM.render(
<Button />,
document.getElementById('example')
);
Notice how you can skip providing props on the component when using defaultProps.
List of all the validation rules
Here’s the list of all the different kind of validation rules included in PropTypes.
import PropTypes from 'prop-types';
MyComponent.propTypes = {
// You can declare that a prop is a specific JS type. By default, these
// are all optional.
optionalArray: PropTypes.array,
optionalBool: PropTypes.bool,
optionalFunc: PropTypes.func,
optionalNumber: PropTypes.number,
optionalObject: PropTypes.object,
optionalString: PropTypes.string,
optionalSymbol: PropTypes.symbol,
// Anything that can be rendered: numbers, strings, elements or an array
// (or fragment) containing these types.
optionalNode: PropTypes.node,
// A React element.
optionalElement: PropTypes.element,
// A React element type (ie. MyComponent).
optionalElementType: PropTypes.elementType,
// You can also declare that a prop is an instance of a class. This uses
// JS's instanceof operator.
optionalMessage: PropTypes.instanceOf(Message),
// You can ensure that your prop is limited to specific values by treating
// it as an enum.
optionalEnum: PropTypes.oneOf(['News', 'Photos']),
// An object that could be one of many types
optionalUnion: PropTypes.oneOfType([
PropTypes.string,
PropTypes.number,
PropTypes.instanceOf(Message)
]),
// An array of a certain type
optionalArrayOf: PropTypes.arrayOf(PropTypes.number),
// An object with property values of a certain type
optionalObjectOf: PropTypes.objectOf(PropTypes.number),
// An object taking on a particular shape
optionalObjectWithShape: PropTypes.shape({
color: PropTypes.string,
fontSize: PropTypes.number
}),
// An object with warnings on extra properties
optionalObjectWithStrictShape: PropTypes.exact({
name: PropTypes.string,
quantity: PropTypes.number
}),
// You can chain any of the above with `isRequired` to make sure a warning
// is shown if the prop isn't provided.
requiredFunc: PropTypes.func.isRequired,
// A value of any data type
requiredAny: PropTypes.any.isRequired
};
Conclusion
Using propTypes really is a best practice when it comes to developing apps using React. However, it’s not at all mandatory to use them. A usecase you would consider using propTypes where there are multiple people working on a project and you want some kind of “type” enforcement on your component right from the beginning because you never know how much your component will get changed over the time. You should keep in mind that it would be a real pain to write prop-types for the component a while after it’s implemented. So, it would be a better idea to write them alongside the implementation of the components.
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