Typescript RefForwardingComponent not working

RefForwardingComponent is a render function, which receives props and ref parameters and returns a React node - it is no component:

The second ref argument only exists when you define a component with React.forwardRef call. Regular function or class components don’t receive the ref argument, and ref is not available in props either. (docs)

That is also the reason, why RefForwardingComponent is deprecated in favor of ForwardRefRenderFunction, which is functionally equivalent, but has a different name to make the distinction clearer.

You use React.forwardRef to turn the render function into an actual component that accepts refs:

import React, { ForwardRefRenderFunction } from 'react'type IMyComponentProps = { a: string }const MyComponentRenderFn: ForwardRefRenderFunction<HTMLDivElement, IMyComponentProps> =    (props, ref) => <div ref={ref}>Hoopla</div>const MyComponent = React.forwardRef(MyComponentRenderFn);const myRef = React.createRef<HTMLDivElement>();<MyComponent a="foo" ref={myRef} />

Your code is right but you are missing a small detail.

When you use RefForwardingComponent you need to export the component wrapped with forwardRef

import React, { forwardRef, RefForwardingComponent } from 'react';type IMyComponentProps = {}const MyComponent: RefForwardingComponent<HTMLDivElement, IMyComponentProps> = (props, ref) => {    return <div ref={ref}>Hoopla</div>}export default forwardRef(MyComponent);

Custom function components can't have 'ref' as a prop. You will have to give it a different name. 'yourRef', for example will be inside the props object.

<MyComponent yourRef={myRef}></MyComponent>

So to use the ref prop:

const MyComponent: RefForwardingComponent<HTMLDivElement, IMyComponentProps> = (props) => {return <div ref={props.yourRef}>Hoopla</div>}

or you can descructure the props:

const MyComponent: RefForwardingComponent<HTMLDivElement, IMyComponentProps> = ({yourRef}) => {return <div ref={yourRef}>Hoopla</div>}