react-native/docs/HandlingTextInput.md

id	title	layout	category	permalink	next	previous
handling-text-input	Handling Text Input	docs	The Basics	docs/handling-text-input.html	using-a-scrollview	flexbox

TextInput is a basic component that allows the user to enter text. It has an onChangeText prop that takes a function to be called every time the text changed, and an onSubmitEditing prop that takes a function to be called when the text is submitted.

For example, let's say that as the user types, you're translating their words into a different language. In this new language, every single word is written the same way: 🍕. So the sentence "Hello there Bob" would be translated as "🍕🍕🍕".

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { AppRegistry, Text, TextInput, View } from 'react-native';

export default class PizzaTranslator extends Component {
  constructor(props) {
    super(props);
    this.state = {text: ''};
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <View style={{padding: 10}}>
        <TextInput
          style={{height: 40}}
          placeholder="Type here to translate!"
          onChangeText={(text) => this.setState({text})}
        />
        <Text style={{padding: 10, fontSize: 42}}>
          {this.state.text.split(' ').map((word) => word && '🍕').join(' ')}
        </Text>
      </View>
    );
  }
}

// skip this line if using Create React Native App
AppRegistry.registerComponent('PizzaTranslator', () => PizzaTranslator);

In this example, we store text in the state, because it changes over time.

There are a lot more things you might want to do with a text input. For example, you could validate the text inside while the user types. For more detailed examples, see the React docs on controlled components, or the reference docs for TextInput.

Text input is probably the simplest example of a component whose state naturally changes over time. Next, let's look at another type of component like this one that controls layout, and learn about the ScrollView.