react-aux

A self-eradicating component for rendering multiple elements.

Motivation

Prior to React v16, returning multiple elements from a component required to wrap them in an auxiliary element, e.g.

const Root = () => {
  return <div>
    <p>Hello, World!</p>
    <p>I am a demo for react-aux.</p>
  </div>;
};

The latter produces the following DOM:

<div>
  <p>Hello, World!</p>
  <p>I am a demo for react-aux.</p>
</div>

Starting with React v16, a single component can return multiple components without a wrapping element, e.g.

const Aux = (props) => {
  return props.children;
};

const Root = () => {
  return <Aux>
    <p>Hello, World!</p>
    <p>I am a demo for react-aux.</p>
  </Aux>;
};

The latter produces paragraph elements without the wrapping node:

<p>Hello, World!</p>
<p>I am a demo for react-aux.</p>

As you can see, react-aux is literally just 3 lines of code. Therefore, you could implement it in your own codebase without using react-aux. However, props => props.children on its own does not explain the intent. react-aux as an abstraction serves the purpose of enabling a self-documenting code, i.e. the next time you see someone doing:

import Aux from 'react-aux';

const Root = () => {
  return <Aux>
    <p>Hello, World!</p>
    <p>I am a demo for react-aux.</p>
  </Aux>;
};

You will know exactly what is the intent of the code.

Related articles

• Using React v16 to create self-destructing components

FAQ

Whats the difference from using an array?

You can use an array if you assign each React$Element a pseudo-property key with a unique value, e.g.

import Aux from 'react-aux';

const Root = () => {
  return [
    <p key='p1'>Hello, World!</p>,
    <p key='p2'>I am a demo for react-aux.</p>
  ];
};

However, it requires manually ensuring key uniqueness and I am too lazy for this.

Whats with the name?

"aux" is a convention I've been using ever since I remember starting to write HTML/ CSS. Auxiliary element is something that does not have semantic purpose but exist for the purpose of grouping elements, styling, etc.