# Composition

<p class="description">Material-UI tries to make composition as easy as possible.</p>

## Wrapping components

In order to provide the maximum flexibility and performance,
we need a way to know the nature of the child elements a component receives.
To solve this problem we tag some of our components when needed
with a `muiName` static property.

However, users like to wrap components in order to enhance them.
That can conflict with our `muiName` solution.
If you encounter this issue, you need to:
1. Forward the properties.
2. Use the same tag for your wrapping component that is used with the wrapped component.

Let's see an example:

```jsx
const WrappedIcon = props => <Icon {...props} />;
WrappedIcon.muiName = 'Icon';
```

{{"demo": "pages/guides/composition/Composition.js"}}

## Component property

Material-UI allows you to change the root node that will be rendered via a property called `component`.
The component will render like this:

```js
return React.createElement(this.props.component, props)
```


For example, by default a `List` will render a `<ul>` element. This can be changed by passing a [React component](https://reactjs.org/docs/components-and-props.html#functional-and-class-components) to the `component` property.
The following example will render the `List` component with a `<nav>` element as root node instead:

```jsx
<List component="nav">
  <ListItem>
    <ListItemText primary="Trash" />
  </ListItem>
  <ListItem>
    <ListItemText primary="Spam" />
  </ListItem>
</List>
```

This pattern is very powerful and allows for great flexibility, as well as a way to interoperate with other libaries, such as `react-router` or your favorite forms library. But it also **comes with a small caveat!**

### Caveat with inlining

Using an inline function as an argument for the `component` property may result in **unexpected unmounting**, since you pass a new component to the `component` property every time React renders.
For instance, if you want to create a custom `ListItem` that acts as a link, you could do the following:

```jsx
const ListItemLink = ({ icon, primary, secondary, to }) => (
  <li>
    <ListItem button component={props => <Link to={to} {...props} />}>
      {icon && <ListItemIcon>{icon}</ListItemIcon>}
      <ListItemText inset primary={primary} secondary={secondary} />
    </ListItem>
  </li>
);
```

However, since we are using an inline function to change the rendered component, React will unmount the link every time `ListItemLink` is rendered. Not only will React update the DOM unnecessarily, the ripple effect of the `ListItem` will also not work correctly.

The solution is simple: **avoid inline functions and pass a static component to the `component` property** instead.
Let's change our `ListItemLink` to the following:

```jsx
class ListItemLink extends React.Component {
  renderLink = itemProps => <Link to={this.props.to} {...itemProps} />;

  render() {
    const { icon, primary, secondary, to } = this.props;
    return (
      <li>
        <ListItem button component={this.renderLink}>
          {icon && <ListItemIcon>{icon}</ListItemIcon>}
          <ListItemText inset primary={primary} secondary={secondary} />
        </ListItem>
      </li>
    );
  }
}
```

`renderLink` will now always reference the same component. Here is a demo with react-router:

{{"demo": "pages/guides/composition/ComponentProperty.js"}}