SyntheticEvent

This reference guide documents the SyntheticEvent wrapper that forms part of React's Event System. See the Handling Events guide to learn more.

Overview #

Your event handlers will be passed instances of SyntheticEvent, a cross-browser wrapper around the browser's native event. It has the same interface as the browser's native event, including stopPropagation() and preventDefault(), except the events work identically across all browsers.

If you find that you need the underlying browser event for some reason, simply use the nativeEvent attribute to get it. Every SyntheticEvent object has the following attributes:

boolean bubbles
boolean cancelable
DOMEventTarget currentTarget
boolean defaultPrevented
number eventPhase
boolean isTrusted
DOMEvent nativeEvent
void preventDefault()
boolean isDefaultPrevented()
void stopPropagation()
boolean isPropagationStopped()
DOMEventTarget target
number timeStamp
string type

Note:

As of v0.14, returning false from an event handler will no longer stop event propagation. Instead, e.stopPropagation() or e.preventDefault() should be triggered manually, as appropriate.

Event Pooling #

The SyntheticEvent is pooled. This means that the SyntheticEvent object will be reused and all properties will be nullified after the event callback has been invoked. This is for performance reasons. As such, you cannot access the event in an asynchronous way.

function onClick(event) {
  console.log(event); // => nullified object.
  console.log(event.type); // => "click"
  const eventType = event.type; // => "click"

  setTimeout(function() {
    console.log(event.type); // => null
    console.log(eventType); // => "click"
  }, 0);

  // Won't work. this.state.clickEvent will only contain null values.
  this.setState({clickEvent: event});

  // You can still export event properties.
  this.setState({eventType: event.type});
}

Note:

If you want to access the event properties in an asynchronous way, you should call event.persist() on the event, which will remove the synthetic event from the pool and allow references to the event to be retained by user code.

Supported Events #

React normalizes events so that they have consistent properties across different browsers.

The event handlers below are triggered by an event in the bubbling phase. To register an event handler for the capture phase, append Capture to the event name; for example, instead of using onClick, you would use onClickCapture to handle the click event in the capture phase.

• Clipboard Events
• Composition Events
• Keyboard Events
• Focus Events
• Form Events
• Mouse Events
• Selection Events
• Touch Events
• UI Events
• Wheel Events
• Media Events
• Image Events
• Animation Events
• Transition Events

Reference #

Clipboard Events #

Event names:

onCopy onCut onPaste

Properties:

DOMDataTransfer clipboardData

Composition Events #

Event names:

onCompositionEnd onCompositionStart onCompositionUpdate

Properties:

string data

Keyboard Events #

Event names:

onKeyDown onKeyPress onKeyUp

Properties:

boolean altKey
number charCode
boolean ctrlKey
boolean getModifierState(key)
string key
number keyCode
string locale
number location
boolean metaKey
boolean repeat
boolean shiftKey
number which

Focus Events #

Event names:

onFocus onBlur

These focus events work on all elements in the React DOM, not just form elements.

Properties:

DOMEventTarget relatedTarget

Form Events #

Event names:

onChange onInput onSubmit

For more information about the onChange event, see Forms.

Mouse Events #

Event names:

onClick onContextMenu onDoubleClick onDrag onDragEnd onDragEnter onDragExit
onDragLeave onDragOver onDragStart onDrop onMouseDown onMouseEnter onMouseLeave
onMouseMove onMouseOut onMouseOver onMouseUp

The onMouseEnter and onMouseLeave events propagate from the element being left to the one being entered instead of ordinary bubbling and do not have a capture phase.

Properties:

boolean altKey
number button
number buttons
number clientX
number clientY
boolean ctrlKey
boolean getModifierState(key)
boolean metaKey
number pageX
number pageY
DOMEventTarget relatedTarget
number screenX
number screenY
boolean shiftKey

Selection Events #

Event names:

onSelect

Touch Events #

Event names:

onTouchCancel onTouchEnd onTouchMove onTouchStart

Properties:

boolean altKey
DOMTouchList changedTouches
boolean ctrlKey
boolean getModifierState(key)
boolean metaKey
boolean shiftKey
DOMTouchList targetTouches
DOMTouchList touches

UI Events #

Event names:

onScroll

Properties:

number detail
DOMAbstractView view

Wheel Events #

Event names:

onWheel

Properties:

number deltaMode
number deltaX
number deltaY
number deltaZ

Media Events #

Event names:

onAbort onCanPlay onCanPlayThrough onDurationChange onEmptied onEncrypted 
onEnded onError onLoadedData onLoadedMetadata onLoadStart onPause onPlay 
onPlaying onProgress onRateChange onSeeked onSeeking onStalled onSuspend 
onTimeUpdate onVolumeChange onWaiting

Image Events #

Event names:

onLoad onError

Animation Events #

Event names:

onAnimationStart onAnimationEnd onAnimationIteration

Properties:

string animationName
string pseudoElement
float elapsedTime

Transition Events #

Event names:

onTransitionEnd

Properties:

string propertyName
string pseudoElement
float elapsedTime