React - Prevent Event Trigger on Parent From Child

I have this scenario, where when parent element is clicked, it flips to show a child element with different colours. Unfortunately, when the user clicks on one of the colours, the 'click' event on parent is also triggered.

How can I stop the event trigger on parent when the child is clicked?

Possible solutions I am wondering:

  1. CSS?
    Append pointer-events : none class to the parent when the child is clicked. However, this would mean that the parent will need to be cleansed of the pointer-events class later.

  2. Using Ref?
    Record the ref of the parent React element & upon click on the child, compare the event.target against the ref? I don't like this because I don't like the global ref.

Thoughts and the better solution would be much appreciated. The question is: How can I stop the event trigger on parent when the child is clicked?


Solution 1:

You can use stopPropagation

stopPropagation - Prevents further propagation of the current event in the bubbling phase

var App = React.createClass({
  handleParentClick: function (e) { 
    console.log('parent');
  },

  handleChildClick: function (e) {
    e.stopPropagation();
    console.log('child');
  },

  render: function() {
    return <div>
      <p onClick={this.handleParentClick}>
        <span onClick={this.handleChildClick}>Click</span>
      </p>
    </div>;
  }
});

ReactDOM.render(<App />, document.getElementById('root'));
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react/15.1.0/react.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react/15.1.0/react-dom.min.js"></script>
<div id="root"></div>

Solution 2:

I had the same issue in React and solved it using the solution bellow:

if(e.currentTarget != e.target ) return;
.......

Solution 3:

Another solution is to attach to the event callback on the parent the following:

if(event.target == event.currentTarget){
  event.stopPropagation()
  ....
}

This way you can intercept events, that originated in the attached DOM node and unrelated events are relayed to the next node.

Solution 4:

I wanted to invoke function on props but at the same time wanted to stop event propagation from child to parent, here is how its handled

class LabelCancelable extends Component {

  handleChildClick(e) {
    e.stopPropagation()
  }
  closeClicked(e, props) {
    e.stopPropagation();
    props.onCloseClicked()
  }

  render() {
    const {displayLabel} = this.props;
    return (
      <span className={ "label-wrapper d-inline-block pr-2 pl-2 mr-2 mb-2" } onClick={ this.handleChildClick }>
          <button type="button" className="close cursor-pointer ml-2 float-right" aria-label="Close"
              onClick={(e) => this.closeClicked(e, this.props) }>
              <span aria-hidden="true">&times;</span>
          </button>
          <span className="label-text fs-12">
            { displayLabel }
          </span>
      </span>
    );
  }
}

export default LabelCancelable;