React – how to capture only parent’s onClick event and not children

I have part of a React Component that looks like this:

var headerElement = someBoolean ? <input/> : 'some string';
return <th onClick={this._onHeaderClick}>{headerElement}</th>;

And a click handler for the th element:

_onHeaderClick(event) {
    event.preventDefault();
    console.log(event.target);
},

I want to capture the th element. It works fine when headerElement is ‘some string’, but when it is an input element, the input element is the one referenced in the event.target property.

What’s the best way to achieve this?

Answer

Since you are binding the handler to th you can use the currentTarget property. The target property refers to the element which dispatched the event.

_onHeaderClick(event) {
    event.preventDefault();
    console.log(event.currentTarget);
}