How to have conditional elements and keep DRY with Facebook React s JSX

Question

How do I optionally include an element in JSX? Here is an example using a banner that should be in the component if it has been passed in. What I want to avoid is having to duplicate HTML tags in the if statement.

render: function () {
    var banner;
    if (this.state.banner) {
        banner = <div id="banner">{this.state.banner}</div>;
    } else {
        banner = ?????
    }
    return (
        <div id="page">
            {banner}
            <div id="other-content">
                blah blah blah...
            </div>
        </div>
    );
}

Answer 1

Hello @kartik,

Let's define a simple helping If component:

var If = React.createClass({
    render: function() {
        if (this.props.test) {
            return this.props.children;
        }
        else {
            return false;
        }
    }
});

And use it this way:

render: function () {
    return (
        <div id="page">
            <If test={this.state.banner}>
                <div id="banner">{this.state.banner}</div>
            </If>
            <div id="other-content">
                blah blah blah...
            </div>
        </div>
    );
}

Hope it helps!!

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