How do I get a subcomponent value while referring to the main component?

So I have a component containing an input, and I need to access the value of this input through the main component like this:

//component declaration:
<MDTextField label='Password' type='password' ref='passwordField'/>

//reffing:
this.refs.passwordField

Can I do this in the first place? And if I can, how do I do this?

Code

const MDTextField = props => {
    PropTypes.checkPropTypes(MDTextField.propTypes, props, 'prop', 'MDTextField');
    const [isFocused, setFocused] = useState(false);
    const [isEmpty, setEmpty] = useState(true);
    const error = props.error;
    const type = props.type.toLowerCase();
    if(!type.match(/^(email|text|password|search)$/))
        throw "Invalid type. Type must be either email, text, password or search."
    console.log('error: ' + error + 'focus: ' + isFocused);
    const _setFocus = () => {
        setFocused(true);
    };
    const _setUnfocus = () => {
        setFocused(false);
    };
    const _handleChange = e => {
        setEmpty(e.target.value.length > 0 ? false : true);
    };
    return (
        <div
        {...props}
        style={{borderColor: props.error ? "rgb(176, 0, 32)" : props.color && isFocused ? props.color : ""}}
        className={`${props.outlined ? style.MDTextFieldOutlined : style.MDTextField} ${props.outlined ? palette.MDTextFieldOutlined : palette.MDTextField} ${props.className ? props.className : ''}`}
        onFocus={_setFocus}
        onBlur={_setUnfocus}
        >
        <label
            className={`${style.Label} ${palette.Label}`}
            style={{
            color: error ? "rgb(176, 0, 32)" : props.accentColor && isFocused ? props.accentColor : "",
            transform: isEmpty ? "" : `translateY(-${props.outlined ? "50" : "50"}%) scale(.75)`
            }}
        >
            {(props.label ? props.label : '') + (error ? "*" : "")}
        </label>
        <span className={style.InputWrapper}>
            <input
            style={{caretColor: error ? "rgb(176, 0, 32)" : (props.accentColor ? props.accentColor : "")}}
            className={`${style.TextInput} ${palette.TextInput}`}
            onChange={_handleChange}
            type={type}
            />
        </span>
        </div>
    );
};

Comments

[Manan Joshi]

The way to do it with refs is

• declare a ref variable
  const fieldRef = React.useRef()

• To access that ref use fieldRef.current

[Simone Aronica]

But this is inside the same component, but I want to access it through a ref in the main component, so outside of the component that is containing the input field

[Manan Joshi]

You can do something like this

Main Component

function Main() {
    const ref = React.useRef();

    React.useEffect(() => {
        if (ref.current) {
          // Do something
        }
    });

    return <ChildComponent setRef = {ref}>
}

Child Component

function Child(props) {
    return <input ref={props.setRef} />
}

[Simone Aronica]

Ended up doing something I did not know the existence of and followed the react docs on this: reactjs.org/docs/forwarding-refs.h...

[Manan Joshi]

Yup this is exactly what I was talking about.