react-dom includes react

[mvolkmann]

My project uses react, react-dom, and react-bootstrap.
react-bootstrap requires react to be a peer dependency.
react-dom includes react as a child dependency.
So I must install react as a top-level dependency in order for react-bootstrap to work.
Now I have two copies of react.
When I try to use the Modal component in react-bootstrap, I get the error "Uncaught Error: Invariant Violation: addComponentAsRefTo(...): Only a ReactOwner can have refs. You might be adding a ref to a component that was not created inside a component's render method, or you have multiple copies of React loaded".
I can fix this by deleting the directory node_modules/react-dom/node_modules/react.
Maybe react-dom should be changed so react is a peer dependency instead of a child dependency.

[syranide]

react-dom includes react as a child dependency.

As far as I understand it; yeah it should be a peer dependency (cc @zpao ?). But dependencies are not child dependencies that's simply a result of how NPM2 unfortunately resolves version issues, so peer dependency is preferable, but a regular dependency is not wrong, you just have to be careful to avoid multiple installations.

[mvolkmann]

I don't know what I did to cause react to be installed below react-dom.
I had this: node_modules/react-dom/node_modules/react
and also: node_modules/react.
I can't find a way to reproduce that now.

[syranide]

It can happen quite stealthily when updating/etc in NPM2. I ran into the same issue recently.

I'll reopen this for now because it really seems to me that it should be a peer dependency.

[bjrmatos]

Any reason why it is a direct dependency in the first place? Was not the intend of npm's peerDependencies to cover this exact problem? (Avoid duplications of modules built around other module, like react and react-dom), just saying that seems there isn't a reason for react-dom to include react as a direct dependency

[zpao]

It probably should be a peerDep. I don't remember why I put it as a regular dep there… (I did addons-* with React as a peerDep).