Introduction

React is a popular JavaScript library for building user interfaces. When building components in React, it's common to want to return multiple elements from a component. However, React requires that components have a single root element. This is where React fragments come in.

What are React fragments?

A React fragment is a way to group a list of children without adding extra nodes to the DOM. Fragments let you group a list of children components without adding an extra element wrapper around them.

Before React 16.2, if you wanted to return multiple elements from a component, you had to wrap them in a single parent element. For example, if you wanted to render a list of items, you might do something like this:

function ItemList() {
  return (
    <div>
      <Item name="Item 1" />
      <Item name="Item 2" />
      <Item name="Item 3" />
    </div>
  );
}

But right now, with React fragments, you can return multiple elements without the need for a parent wrapper element. Here's how you would do it:

function ItemList() {
  return (
    <>
      <Item name="Item 1" />
      <Item name="Item 2" />
      <Item name="Item 3" />
    </>
  );
}

As you can see, the <> and </> tags are used to define a React fragment. This tells React that the elements inside the fragment should be treated as a single unit, without adding any extra nodes to the DOM.

Why use React fragments?

There are several benefits to using React fragments:

1. Cleaner code: Fragments let you group a list of children components without adding an extra element wrapper around them. This makes your code cleaner and more readable.

2. Better performance: Fragments can improve the performance of your React components. When you render a component with a parent wrapper element, React has to create an extra DOM node. This can cause performance issues, especially if you have a lot of components.

3. More flexibility: Fragments let you return multiple elements from a component without the need for a parent wrapper element. This gives you more flexibility in how you structure your components.

How to use React fragments

To use a fragment, you can import it from the 'react' module and wrap your child elements with it. Here's an example:

import React from 'react';

function MyComponent() {
  return (
    <>
      <h1>Hello</h1>
      <p>World</p>
    </>
  );
}

In the example above, the <> and </> are used to define the fragment instead of the traditional <React.Fragment> and </React.Fragment> syntax.

Note that you can also assign keys and other props to fragments using the shorthand syntax, like this:

import React from 'react';

function MyComponent() {
  return (
    <>
      <Item key="1" />
      <Item key="2" />
      <Item key="3" />
    </>
  );
}

function Item(props) {
  return <div>{props.children}</div>;
}

Conclusion

We've come to the end, thanks for reading through.

In summary, React fragments are a powerful tool for building components in React. They let you group a list of children components without needing to add an extra element wrapper around them. This makes your code cleaner and more readable, and can improve the performance of your React components. If you're not already using React fragments, give them a try!