React.ReactNode VS JSX.Element

In React, ReactNode and JSX.Element are both types used to define the type of a component's children. However, they represent slightly different things.

JSX.Element represents a single JSX element, while ReactNode represents any valid type that can be rendered as a child of a React component. This includes not only JSX elements, but also strings, numbers, arrays, and other types.

Here's an example to illustrate the difference:

import React, { ReactNode } from 'react';
 
type Props = {
  children: ReactNode;
};
 
function MyComponent({ children }: Props) {
  return (
    <div>
      {children}
    </div>
  );
}
 
function App() {
  return (
    <MyComponent>
      <h1>Hello, world!</h1>
      <p>This is a paragraph.</p>
    </MyComponent>
  );
}
 

In the example above, MyComponent accepts a single prop called children, which is of type ReactNode. This means that the component can accept any valid type as its children.

In the App component, we pass two JSX elements (<h1> and <p>) as children to MyComponent. These JSX elements are both of type JSX.Element.

If we tried to pass a string, number, or array as a child to MyComponent, it would also be valid, because all of these types are included in the ReactNode type.

function App() {
  return (
    <MyComponent>
      123
      ['an', 'array', 'of', 'strings']
    </MyComponent>
  );
}
 

In the example above, we're passing a number and an array of strings as children to MyComponent, and both are valid because they are included in the ReactNode type.

To provide an example of JSX.Element, consider the following code:

import React from 'react';
 
type Props = {
  element: JSX.Element;
};
 
function MyComponent({ element }: Props) {
  return (
    <div>
      {element}
    </div>
  );
}
 
function App() {
  return (
    <MyComponent element={<h1>Hello, world!</h1>} />
  );
}
 

In the example above, MyComponent accepts a single prop called element, which is of type JSX.Element. This means that the component can accept a single JSX element as its child.

In the App component, we pass a single JSX element (<h1>) as a child to MyComponent. This JSX element is of type JSX.Element.

If we tried to pass a string, number, or array as a child to MyComponent, it would not be valid, because these types are not included in the JSX.Element type.

JSX.Element is a type in React that represents a single JSX element. It is used to define the type of a component's child and represents a tree of React elements. It can include any valid HTML-like syntax, such as HTML tags, custom components, or plain text.