Skip to content

The React Fragment

How to use React.Fragment to create invisible HTML tags

Notice how I wrap return values in a div. This is because a component can only return one single element, and if you want more than one, you need to wrap it with another container tag.

This however causes an unnecessary div in the output. You can avoid this by using React.Fragment:

import React, { Component, Fragment } from 'react'

class BlogPostExcerpt extends Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <React.Fragment>
        <h1>{this.props.title}</h1>
        <p>{this.props.description}</p>
      </React.Fragment>
    )
  }
}

which also has a very nice shorthand syntax <></> that is supported only in recent releases (and Babel 7+):

import React, { Component, Fragment } from 'react'

class BlogPostExcerpt extends Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <>
        <h1>{this.props.title}</h1>
        <p>{this.props.description}</p>
      </>
    )
  }
}

→ Get my React Beginner's Handbook

I wrote 21 books to help you become a better developer:

  • HTML Handbook
  • Next.js Pages Router Handbook
  • Alpine.js Handbook
  • HTMX Handbook
  • TypeScript Handbook
  • React Handbook
  • SQL Handbook
  • Git Cheat Sheet
  • Laravel Handbook
  • Express Handbook
  • Swift Handbook
  • Go Handbook
  • PHP Handbook
  • Python Handbook
  • Linux Commands Handbook
  • C Handbook
  • JavaScript Handbook
  • Svelte Handbook
  • CSS Handbook
  • Node.js Handbook
  • Vue Handbook
...download them all now!

Related posts that talk about react: