Rendering raw html with reactjs

So is this the only way to render raw html with reactjs?

// http://facebook.github.io/react/docs/tutorial.html
// tutorial7.js
var converter = new Showdown.converter();
var Comment = React.createClass({
  render: function() {
    var rawMarkup = converter.makeHtml(this.props.children.toString());
    return (
      <div className="comment">
        <h2 className="commentAuthor">
          {this.props.author}
        </h2>
        <span dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{__html: rawMarkup}} />
      </div>
    );
  }
});

I know there are some cool ways to markup stuff with JSX, but I am mainly interested in being able to render raw html (with all the classes, inline styles, etc..). Something complicated like this:

<!-- http://getbootstrap.com/components/#dropdowns-example -->
<div class="dropdown">
  <button class="btn btn-default dropdown-toggle" type="button" id="dropdownMenu1" data-toggle="dropdown" aria-expanded="true">
    Dropdown
    <span class="caret"></span>
  </button>
  <ul class="dropdown-menu" role="menu" aria-labelledby="dropdownMenu1">
    <li role="presentation"><a role="menuitem" tabindex="-1" href="#">Action</a></li>
    <li role="presentation"><a role="menuitem" tabindex="-1" href="#">Another action</a></li>
    <li role="presentation"><a role="menuitem" tabindex="-1" href="#">Something else here</a></li>
    <li role="presentation"><a role="menuitem" tabindex="-1" href="#">Separated link</a></li>
  </ul>
</div>

I would not want to have to rewrite all of that in JSX.

Maybe I am thinking about this all wrong. Please correct me.

There are now safer methods to render HTML. I covered this in a previous answer here. You have 4 options, the last uses dangerouslySetInnerHTML.

Methods for rendering HTML

1. Easiest - Use Unicode, save the file as UTF-8 and set the charset to UTF-8.

   <div>{'First · Second'}</div>

2. Safer - Use the Unicode number for the entity inside a Javascript string.

   <div>{'First \u00b7 Second'}</div>

   or

   <div>{'First ' + String.fromCharCode(183) + ' Second'}</div>

3. Or a mixed array with strings and JSX elements.

   <div>{['First ', <span>&middot;</span>, ' Second']}</div>

4. Last Resort - Insert raw HTML using dangerouslySetInnerHTML.

   <div dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{__html: 'First &middot; Second'}} />

You could leverage the html-to-react npm module.

Note: I'm the author of the module and just published it a few hours ago. Please feel free to report any bugs or usability issues.

dangerouslySetInnerHTML is React’s replacement for using innerHTML in the browser DOM. In general, setting HTML from code is risky because it’s easy to inadvertently expose your users to a cross-site scripting (XSS) attack.

It is better/safer to sanitise your raw HTML (using e.g., DOMPurify) before injecting it into the DOM via dangerouslySetInnerHTML.

DOMPurify - a DOM-only, super-fast, uber-tolerant XSS sanitizer for HTML, MathML and SVG. DOMPurify works with a secure default, but offers a lot of configurability and hooks.

Example:

import React from 'react'
import createDOMPurify from 'dompurify'
import { JSDOM } from 'jsdom'

const window = (new JSDOM('')).window
const DOMPurify = createDOMPurify(window)

const rawHTML = `
<div class="dropdown">
  <button class="btn btn-default dropdown-toggle" type="button" id="dropdownMenu1" data-toggle="dropdown" aria-expanded="true">
    Dropdown
    <span class="caret"></span>
  </button>
  <ul class="dropdown-menu" role="menu" aria-labelledby="dropdownMenu1">
    <li role="presentation"><a role="menuitem" tabindex="-1" href="#">Action</a></li>
    <li role="presentation"><a role="menuitem" tabindex="-1" href="#">Another action</a></li>
    <li role="presentation"><a role="menuitem" tabindex="-1" href="#">Something else here</a></li>
    <li role="presentation"><a role="menuitem" tabindex="-1" href="#">Separated link</a></li>
  </ul>
</div>
`

const YourComponent = () => (
  <div>
    { <div dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{ __html: DOMPurify.sanitize(rawHTML) }} /> }
  </div>
)

export default YourComponent

I have used this in quick and dirty situations:

// react render method:

render() {
    return (
      <div>
        { this.props.textOrHtml.indexOf('</') !== -1
            ? (
                <div dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{__html: this.props.textOrHtml.replace(/(<? *script)/gi, 'illegalscript')}} >
                </div>
              )
            : this.props.textOrHtml
          }

      </div>
      )
  }

I have tried this pure component:

const RawHTML = ({children, className = ""}) => 
<div className={className}
  dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{ __html: children.replace(/\n/g, '<br />')}} />

Features

• Takes classNameprop (easier to style it)
• Replaces \n to <br /> (you often want to do that)
• Place content as children when using the component like:
• <RawHTML>{myHTML}</RawHTML>

I have placed the component in a Gist at Github: RawHTML: ReactJS pure component to render HTML