[Bug][Android] NativeMethodMixins don't work unless the view has a native property

[hey99xx]

NativeMethodMixins don't work unless the view has a native property. As far as I know this bug only happens on Android, I'm testing with a device on Android Marshmallow API 23, according to one of my coworkers the example below has no issue on iOS.

I've brought down my test case to this simple component.

class MyComponent extends React.Component {
    render() {
        return (
            <View ref="myView" style={{opacity:1}}>
                {this.props.children}
            </View>
        );
    }
    componentDidMount() {
        this.refs.myView.measureInWindow((x,y,width,height) => {
            console.log(x,y,width,height)
        });
    }
}

When you render this component, you should see something like 0 0 50 0 in the console while debugging with Chrome. Now if I remove style={{opacity:1}} part, I get undefined undefined undefined undefined in the console. The expected behavior is I should keep getting the same log even when the style prop is removed.

Putting break points in NativeViewHierarchyManager#createView method, it was never invoked with myView when the native property is removed. I check which views are created on the native side by printing with findNodeHandle function.

[rmevans9]

@facebook-github-bot label Android

[hey99xx]

I suspect NativeViewHierarchyOptimizer would be responsible of this bug. If React detects that myView is simply pass through, it does not create its native view (android.view.ViewGroup), so NativeViewHierarchyManager will not be able to find the actual native views even when they're requested. When I do put a style property, React likely detects that the view needs a native view.
I'm not going to be able to confirm my suspcision until Monday (when I'll be in office). Hopefully an Android engineer ( @mkonicek ?) would see this bug report soon.

Edit: Just noticed https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/view.html#collapsable , is that intended for this kind of purposes?

[hey99xx]

Since I've created this bug, I have verified my suspicion that the backing native view was never created. Now I always force it to be created with collapsable property. It's a minor annoyance, but I can live with it.