Conditional Rendering

Overview

In this lesson we'll be covering conditional rendering with React by building a small greeting application. Conditional rendering is important because it allows us to control the flow of user experience in an application.

As we know, there are many ways to set up conditional rendering with our Javascript. At its most basic, our final result will look something like this :

const isLoggedIn = false

if (isLoggedIn = true) {
    return <h1> Welcome to our page! <h1>
} else {
    return <h1> Please log in! </h1>
}

If you can understand the basics of this syntax, you are already 50% of the way there. All we have to do now is factor this into our React app.

Between Ternaries and our Logical Operators (!, &&, ||), the order we want to compose our logic with, and the use of Components with Props, we can take this relatively simple block of code and build it up into something modern, elegant, and very powerful.

Think of how many sites you have used that have something like this in their code:

const isLoggedIn = false


return (!isLoggedIn ? <LogInPage />  :  <WelcomePage /> )

Lesson Objectives

• Understand several methods for conditional rendering with React components
• Use conditional rendering with state to affect real time changes in our application's UI

Getting Started

• Fork and clone this repository and cd into the new directory
• Create a new React app with npx create-react-app .
• Run npm start to open your app in the browser
• Within src, create a components folder to store components we'll be creating in this lesson

Instructions

Setup

In React, you can create distinct components that encapsulate behavior you need. Then, you can render only some of them, depending on the state of your application.

Conditional rendering in React works the same way conditions work in JavaScript. Use JavaScript operators like if or ? to create elements representing the current state, and let React update the UI to match them.

We'll start by adding two components into our components directory:

UserGreeting.jsx

const UserGreeting = () => {

  return <h1>Welcome back!</h1>
}

export default UserGreeting

GuestGreeting.jsx

const GuestGreeting = () => {

  return <h1>Please sign up.</h1>
}

export default GuestGreeting

We’ll then create a Greeting component that displays either of these components depending on whether a user is logged in:

Greeting.jsx

import UserGreeting from './UserGreeting'
import GuestGreeting from './GuestGreeting'

const Greeting = (props) => {
  const isLoggedIn = props.isLoggedIn

  if (isLoggedIn) {
    return <UserGreeting />
  }
  return <GuestGreeting />
}

export default Greeting

Make sure to import our Greeting component into App.js so it is rendered and pass props to it for the isLoggedIn boolean value.

App.js

import Greeting from './components/Greeting'

const App = () => {

  return <Greeting isLoggedIn={false} />
}

export default App

This example renders a different greeting depending on the value of isLoggedIn prop.

• Which greeting is our component rendering?
• Now let's try changing value of isLoggedIn being passed from App.js to true
• Has anything changed with our rendered components?
• Wait, where did <GuestGreeting /> go?

Element Variables

You can use variables to store elements. This can help you conditionally render a part of the component while the rest of the output doesn’t change.

Let's create two more new components in our components folder representing Logout and Login buttons:

LoginButton.jsx

const LoginButton = (props) => {

  return <button onClick={props.onClick}>Login</button>
}

export default LoginButton

LogoutButton.jsx

const LogoutButton = (props) => {

  return <button onClick={props.onClick}>Log Out</button>
}

export default LogoutButton

In the example below, we will now add state to our App using the useState hook to track our isLoggedIn variable. We'll also import our two button components from above and attach methods to set the state of isLoggedIn with onClick event listeners.

• In the App component, we'll create a variable button that conditionally renders one of our button components depending on whether the user isLoggedIn or not.
• App.js will now render either <LoginButton /> or <LogoutButton /> depending on its current state.
• It will also render a <Greeting /> from the previous example:

import { useState } from 'react'
import './App.css'
import Greeting from './components/Greeting'
import LoginButton from './components/LoginButton'
import LogoutButton from './components/LogoutButton'

const App = () => {
  const [isLoggedIn, toggleLogin] = useState(false)

  const handleLoginClick = () => toggleLogin(true)

  const handleLogoutClick = () => toggleLogin(false)

  let button

  if (isLoggedIn) {
    button = <LogoutButton onClick={handleLogoutClick} />
  } else {
    button = <LoginButton onClick={handleLoginClick} />
  }

  return (
    <div className="App">
      <Greeting isLoggedIn={isLoggedIn} />
      {button}
    </div>
  )
}

export default App

While declaring a variable and using an if statement is a fine way to conditionally render a component, sometimes you might want to use a shorter syntax. There are a few ways to inline conditions in JSX, explained below.

Inline If with Logical && Operator

You may embed any expressions in JSX by wrapping them in curly braces. This includes the JavaScript logical && operator. It can be handy for conditionally including an element.

Let's add one more component to our components folder

Mailbox.jsx

const Mailbox = (props) => {
  const unreadMessages = props.unreadMessages

  return (
    <div>
      <h1>Hello!</h1>
      {unreadMessages.length > 0 && (
        <h2>You have {unreadMessages.length} unread messages.</h2>
      )}
    </div>
  )
}

export default Mailbox

Now we'll import it within our App.js component.

import Mailbox from './components/Mailbox'

Before we render Mailbox, we'll need to add another state variable to pass props into Mailbox.

const [unreadMessages, setUnreadMessages] = useState([
  'Hello',
  'World',
  'This is Doordash with your order'
])

Finally, inside of App.js , we'll add a variable mailbox and set it equal to another inline logical && operator that will only render <Mailbox /> if the user is logged in.

• Don't forget to call in {mailbox} inside your return statement.

// App.js

let button
const mailbox = isLoggedIn && <Mailbox unreadMessages={unreadMessages} />

if (isLoggedIn) {
  button = <LogoutButton onClick={handleLogoutClick} />
} else {
  button = <LoginButton onClick={handleLoginClick} />
}

...

Your App.js should look like this when you're finished

import { useState } from 'react'
import './App.css'
import Greeting from './components/Greeting'
import LoginButton from './components/LoginButton'
import LogoutButton from './components/LogoutButton'
import Mailbox from './components/Mailbox'

const App = () => {
  const [isLoggedIn, toggleLogin] = useState(false)

  const [unreadMessages, setUnreadMessages] = useState([
    'Hello',
    'World',
    'This is Doordash with your order'
  ])

  const handleLoginClick = () => toggleLogin(true)

  const handleLogoutClick = () => toggleLogin(false)

  let button

  const mailbox = isLoggedIn && <Mailbox unreadMessages={unreadMessages} />

  if (isLoggedIn) {
    button = <LogoutButton onClick={handleLogoutClick} />
  } else {
    button = <LoginButton onClick={handleLoginClick} />
  }

  return (
    <div className="App">
      <Greeting isLoggedIn={isLoggedIn} />
      {button}
      {mailbox}
    </div>
  )
}

export default App

So why does the logical && operator work with conditional rendering in React?

It works because in JavaScript, true && expression always evaluates to expression, and false && expression always evaluates to false.

Therefore, if the condition is true, the element right after && will appear in the output. If it is false, React will ignore and skip it.

Inline If-Else with A Ternary Operator

Another method for conditionally rendering elements inline is to use the JavaScript conditional operator condition ? true : false.

To try this out, let's add a <p> tag inside the return of App.js. This <p> tag will tell us whether the user is logged in or not depending on the outcome of the ternary statement:

// App.js
return (
    <div className="App">
      <Greeting isLoggedIn={isLoggedIn} />
      <p>The user is <b>{isLoggedIn ? 'currently' : 'not'}</b> logged in.</p>
      {mailbox}
      {button}
    </div>
  )

Preventing Component from Rendering

In rare cases you might want a component to hide itself even though it was rendered by another component. To do this return null instead of its render output.

Recap

With React we are able to control the flow of rendering and user experience with conditional JavaScript statements. Statements often used in React apps to conditionally render components include:

• if / else Statements
• Logical && Operators
• Ternary Operators
• switch Statements

Make sure to use conditional rendering to create more controlled applications in React!

Resources

• Conditional Rendering React Repository
• React Conditional Rendering Docs