Checking the VNode type

Vue has a built-in function, isVNode(), for testing whether something is a VNode.

Most of the helpers provided by vnode-util require a callback that will be passed eligible VNodes. These will always be full VNodes, so it isn't necessary to use isVNode() within those callbacks.

It is common to want to handle different types of VNode differently inside the callback. For example, you might want to detect text VNodes. The type of a VNode can be checked using getType():

const children = addProps(slotVNodes, (vnode) => {
  switch (getType(vnode)) {
    case 'component':
      // ...
    case 'element':
      // ...
    case 'text':
      // ...
    case 'comment':
      //
  }
})

In addition to the values shown above, getType() can also return 'static', 'fragment' and undefined. Of those 3 values, only 'static' can be encountered in the callbacks, but in practice that shouldn't happen if the VNode came from a slot.

The value passed to getType() doesn't have to be a fully instantiated VNode. It also supports being passed any value that can be converted to a VNode. So, for example, a string would be considered a text node. If you need to check that something really is a VNode then use isVNode(), but in practice this shouldn't be necessary for the values passed to callbacks by vnode-util.

There are also helpers for checking an individual type:

For example:

const children = replaceChildren(slotVNodes, (vnode) => {
  if (isText(vnode) || isComment(vnode)) {
    // ...
  }
})

It should be noted that most of the callbacks can be pre-filtered by passing IterationOptions, so it's only necessary to do explicit checks if the callback needs to handle multiple types.

Component VNodes can be split into two further categories using isStatefulComponent() and isFunctionalComponent(). The component itself is available via the VNode's type property. For an element VNode the type will be the tag name.

getText() can be used to read the text from a text node. As well as text VNodes, it also considers strings and numbers to be valid text nodes, consistent with isText(). If the passed value is not a valid text node then undefined will be returned.

Checking the VNode type ​

Checking the VNode type