ReactJS - how to pass "global" data to deeply nested child components?

Since I originally answered this question, it's become apparent to me that React itself doesn't support "global" data in any sense - it is truly meant to manage the UI and that's it. The data of your app needs to live somewhere else. Having said that, it does now support accessing global context data as detailed in this other answer on this page. Here's a good article by Kent Dodds on how the context api has evolved, and is now officially supported in React.

The context approach should only be used for truly global data. If your data falls into any other category, then you should do as follows:

• Facebook themselves solve this problem using their own Flux library.
• Mobx and Redux are similar to Flux, but seem to have more popular appeal. They do the same thing, but in a cleaner, more intuitive way.

I'm leaving my original edits to this answer below, for some history.

OLD ANSWER:

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The best answer I've found for this so far are these 2 React mixins, which I haven't had a chance to try, but they sound like they'll address this problem:

https://github.com/dustingetz/react-cursor

and this similar library:

https://github.com/mquan/cortex

MAJOR NOTE: I think this is a job for Facebook's Flux, or something similar (which the above are). When the data flow gets too complex, another mechanism is required to communicate between components other than callbacks, and Flux and it's clones seem to be it....

What's wrong with just passing data all the way down the component chain via rendering all children with {...restOfProps}?

render(){
  const {propIKnowAbout1, propIKnowAbout2, ...restOfProps} = this.props;
  return <ChildComponent foo={propIKnowAbout1} bar={propIKnowAbout2} {...restOfProps}/>
}

Use the React Context Property This is specifically for passing global data sets down the chain without explicitly forwarding them. It does complicate your Component lifecycle functions though, and note the cautions offered on the page I've linked.

You can use the React Context API for passing global data down to deeply nested child components. Kent C. Dodds wrote an extensive article on it on Medium React’s ⚛️ new Context API. It'll help in getting a better understanding of how to use the API.