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. The synthetic events are different from, and do not map directly to, the browser’s native events. For example in onMouseLeave event.nativeEvent will point to a mouseout event. The specific mapping is not part of the public API and may change at any time. 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()
void persist()
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
• Generic Events
• Mouse Events
• Pointer Events
• Selection Events
• Touch Events
• UI Events
• Wheel Events
• Media Events
• Image Events
• Animation Events
• Transition Events
• Other 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

The key property can take any of the values documented in the DOM Level 3 Events spec.

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 onInvalid onReset onSubmit 

For more information about the onChange event, see Forms.

Generic Events

Event names:

onError onLoad

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

Pointer Events

Event names:

onPointerDown onPointerMove onPointerUp onPointerCancel onGotPointerCapture
onLostPointerCapture onPointerEnter onPointerLeave onPointerOver onPointerOut

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

Properties:

As defined in the W3 spec, pointer events extend Mouse Events with the following properties:

number pointerId
number width
number height
number pressure
number tangentialPressure
number tiltX
number tiltY
number twist
string pointerType
boolean isPrimary

A note on cross-browser support:

Pointer events are not yet supported in every browser (at the time of writing this article, supported browsers include: Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Internet Explorer). React deliberately does not polyfill support for other browsers because a standard-conform polyfill would significantly increase the bundle size of react-dom.

If your application requires pointer events, we recommend adding a third party pointer event polyfill.

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

Other Events

Event names:

onToggle