react-server

This project seeks to re-implement React's renderToString and renderToStaticMarkup methods to be more efficient for server rendering. The resulting markup is intended to be equivalent to that of stock React so that the client (which will use stock React) will be able to re-use the server rendered markup.

Install

Not available on npm. You must install from git.

Usage

react-server is meant to be a drop in replacement for React specifically for the server. It should not be used on the client.

You can enable react-server by doing the following:

require('react-server/register');

Internally this is overriding node's require cache to return react-server whenever require('react') or require('react/addons') is called.

Behavioral Differences

In order to gain these efficiencies, some of the inner workings of React have been changed which may bleed in to how components are implemented.

Autobinding

React.createClass automatically binds all non-static methods to the component instance so that you do not need to automatically bind them. This is typically used when registering event handlers or passing methods between components. If your component relies on this, it's not as simple as just using bind because React on the client will warn about binding methods that are already autobound. Instead, you can create a closure:

React.createClass({
    render: function () {
        var self = this;
        return <a onClick={function (e) {
            self.handleClick(e);
        }}>foo</a>
    }
});

Owner vs. Parent Context

react-server uses parent context which is slightly different to React 0.13's owner context. React plans on switching to parent context in version 0.14, but react-server chose parent context due to its simpler implementation. In most cases, this is actually more reliable than the old owner context.

Missing Utilities

react-server may still be missing functionality from stock React. If you find any missing pieces or broken functionality, please open an issue to let me know.

Testing

You can run the test suite and benchmarks simply by running:

npm test

mridgway / react-server