react-docgen

react-docgen is a CLI and toolbox to help extracting information from React components, and generate documentation from it.

It uses recast and babylon to parse the source into an AST and provides methods to process this AST to extract the desired information. The output / return value is a JSON blob / JavaScript object.

It provides a default implementation for React components defined via React.createClass or ES2015 class definitions. These component definitions must follow certain guidelines in order to be analyzable (see below for more info).

Install

Install the module directly from npm:

npm install -g react-docgen

CLI

Installing the module adds a react-docgen executable which allows you do convert a single file, multiple files or an input stream. We are trying to make the executable as versatile as possible so that it can be integrated into many workflows.

Usage: react-docgen [path]... [options]

path     A component file or directory. If no path is provided it reads from stdin.

Options:
   -o FILE, --out FILE   store extracted information in FILE
   --pretty              pretty print JSON
   -x, --extension       File extensions to consider. Repeat to define multiple extensions. Default:  [js,jsx]
   -i, --ignore          Folders to ignore. Default:  [node_modules,__tests__]

Extract meta information from React components.
If a directory is passed, it is recursively traversed.

By default, react-docgen will look for the exported component created through React.createClass or a class definition in each file. Have a look below for how to customize this behavior.

Have a look at example/ for an example of how to use the result to generate a markdown version of the documentation.

API

The tool can be used programmatically to extract component information and customize the extraction process:

var reactDocs = require('react-docgen');
var componentInfo = reactDocs.parse(src);

As with the CLI, this will look for the exported component created through React.createClass or a class definition in the provided source. The whole process of analyzing the source code is separated into two parts:

• Locating/finding the nodes in the AST which define the component
• Extracting information from those nodes

parse accepts more arguments with which this behavior can be customized.

parse(source [, resolver [, handlers]])

Parameter	Type	Description
source	string	The source text
resolver	function	A function of the form `(ast: ASTNode, recast: Object) => (NodePath
handlers	Array<function>	An array of functions of the form (documentation: Documentation, definition: NodePath) => void. Each function is called with a Documentation object and a reference to the component definition as returned by resolver. Handlers extract relevant information from the definition and augment documentation.

resolver

The resolver's task is to extract those parts from the source code which the handlers can analyze. For example, the findExportedComponentDefinition resolver inspects the AST to find

var Component = React.createClass(<def>);
module.exports = Component;

// or

class Component extends React.Component {
  // ...
}
module.exports = Component;

and returns the ObjectExpression to which <def> resolves to, or the class declaration itself.

findAllComponentDefinitions works similarly, but finds all React.createClass calls and class definitions, not only the one that is exported.

This makes it easy, together with the utility methods created to analyze the AST, to introduce new or custom resolver methods. For example, a resolver could look for plain ObjectExpressions with a render method.

handlers

Handlers do the actual work and extract the desired information from the result the resolver returned. Like the resolver, they try to delegate as much work as possible to the reusable utility functions.

For example, while the propTypesHandler expects the prop types definition to be an ObjectExpression and be available as propTypes in the component definition, most of the work is actually performed by the getPropType utility function.

Guidelines for default resolvers and handlers

• Modules have to export a single component, and only that component is analyzed.
• When using React.createClass, the component definition (the value passed to it) must resolve to an object literal.
• When using classes, the class must either extend React.Component or define a render() method.
• propTypes must be an object literal or resolve to an object literal in the same file.
• The return statement in getDefaultProps must contain an object literal.

Example

For the following component

var React = require('react');

/**
 * General component description.
 */
var Component = React.createClass({
  propTypes: {
    /**
     * Description of prop "foo".
     */
    foo: React.PropTypes.number,
    /**
     * Description of prop "bar" (a custom validation function).
     */
    bar: function(props, propName, componentName) {
      // ...
    },
    baz: React.PropTypes.oneOfType([
      React.PropTypes.number,
      React.PropTypes.string
    ]),
  },

  getDefaultProps: function() {
    return {
      foo: 42,
      bar: 21
    };
  },

  render: function() {
    // ...
  }
});

module.exports = Component;

we are getting this output:

{
  "props": {
    "foo": {
      "type": {
        "name": "number"
      },
      "required": false,
      "description": "Description of prop \"foo\".",
      "defaultValue": {
        "value": "42",
        "computed": false
      }
    },
    "bar": {
      "type": {
        "name": "custom"
      },
      "required": false,
      "description": "Description of prop \"bar\" (a custom validation function).",
      "defaultValue": {
        "value": "21",
        "computed": false
      }
    },
    "baz": {
      "type": {
        "name": "union",
        "value": [
          {
            "name": "number"
          },
          {
            "name": "string"
          }
        ]
      },
      "required": false,
      "description": ""
    }
  },
  "description": "General component description."
}

Result data structure

The structure of the JSON blob / JavaScript object is as follows:

{
  ["description": string,]
  ["props": {
    "<propName>": {
      "type": {
        "name": "<typeName>",
        ["value": <typeValue>]
        ["raw": string]
      },
      "required": boolean,
      "description": string,
      ["defaultValue": {
        "value": number | string,
        "computed": boolean
      }]
    },
    ...
  },]
  ["composes": <componentNames>]
}

([...] means the property may not exist if such information was not found in the component definition)

• <propName>: For each prop that was found, there will be an entry in props under the same name.
• <typeName>: The name of the type, which is usually corresponds to the function name in React.PropTypes. However, for types define with oneOf, we use "enum" and for oneOfType we use "union". If a custom function is provided or the type cannot be resolved to anything of React.PropTypes, we use "custom".
• <typeValue>: Some types accept parameters which define the type in more detail (such as arrayOf, instanceOf, oneOf, etc). Those are stored in <typeValue>. The data type of <typeValue> depends on the type definition.