[Feature request] Allowing multiple refs on same DOM element

[illuminist]

Context

I'm working on an app which need to make use of 3rd-party lib. But problem came when the lib need a ref access to DOM element and I also have ref that need to assign to the same DOM element.

So it comes down to I have 2 ref objects that need to be assigns into the same element.

Proposal

Make ref prop to accept an array of ref object or call back.

Which should have a signature like

{
  ref: 
    | ((el: Element| null) => void)
    | React.RefObject<Element> 
    | (((el: Element| null) => void) | React.RefObject<Element>)[]
}

[Leo Driesch]

This is possible already and it is not too difficult, as you can see here.

[illuminist]

@leodr That's what I'm doing as workaround. It should be more convenience if add the feature to react directly.

[Lenz Weber-Tronic]

@illuminist that would be 227 extra Bytes that only a very small part of Reacts users ever needed - for something that is easily implementable in userspace. That stuff adds up pretty fast.

[Anton Korzunov]

Just don't forget to maintain req equality on the derived ref. It might not work that great out of the box - gregberge/react-merge-refs#5

[dan]

Hi, thanks for your suggestion. RFCs should be submitted as pull requests, not issues. I will close this issue but feel free to resubmit in the PR format.