How to pass data from child component to its parent in ReactJS?

Question

I'm trying to send data from a child component to its parent as follow:

const ParentComponent = React.createClass({
    getInitialState() {
        return {
            language: '',
        };
    },
    handleLanguageCode: function(langValue) {
        this.setState({language: langValue});
    },

    render() {
         return (
                <div className="col-sm-9" >
                    <SelectLanguage onSelectLanguage={this.handleLanguage}/> 
                </div>
        );
});

and here is the child component:

export const SelectLanguage = React.createClass({
    getInitialState: function(){
        return{
            selectedCode: '',
            selectedLanguage: '',
        };
    },

    handleLangChange: function (e) {
        var lang = this.state.selectedLanguage;
        var code = this.state.selectedCode;
        this.props.onSelectLanguage({selectedLanguage: lang});   
        this.props.onSelectLanguage({selectedCode: code});           
    },

    render() {
        var json = require("json!../languages.json");
        var jsonArray = json.languages;
        return (
            <div >
                <DropdownList ref='dropdown'
                    data={jsonArray} 
                    value={this.state.selectedLanguage}
                    caseSensitive={false} 
                    minLength={3}
                    filter='contains'
                    onChange={this.handleLangChange} />
            </div>            
        );
    }
});

What I need is to get the selected value by user in the parent component. I'm getting this error:

Uncaught TypeError: this.props.onSelectLanguage is not a function

Can anyone help me to find the problem?

P.S. The child component is creating a dropdown from a json file, and I need the dropdown list to show both elements of the json array next to each other(like: "aaa,english" as the first choice!)

{  
   "languages":[  
      [  
         "aaa",
         "english"
      ],
      [  
         "aab",
         "swedish"
      ],
}

Answer 1

This should work. While sending the prop back you are sending that as an object rather send that as a value or alternatively use it as an object in the parent component. Secondly you need to format your json object to contain name value pairs and use valueField and textField attribute of DropdownList

Short Answer

Parent:

<div className="col-sm-9">
     <SelectLanguage onSelectLanguage={this.handleLanguage} /> 
</div>

Child:

handleLangChange = () => {
    var lang = this.dropdown.value;
    this.props.onSelectLanguage(lang);            
}

---

Detailed:

EDIT:

Considering React.createClass is deprecated from v16.0 onwards, It is better to go ahead and create a React Component by extending React.Component. Passing data from child to parent component with this syntax will look like

Parent

class ParentComponent extends React.Component {

    state = { language: '' }

    handleLanguage = (langValue) => {
        this.setState({language: langValue});
    }

    render() {
         return (
                <div className="col-sm-9">
                    <SelectLanguage onSelectLanguage={this.handleLanguage} /> 
                </div>
        )
     }
}

Child

var json = require("json!../languages.json");
var jsonArray = json.languages;

export class SelectLanguage extends React.Component {
    state = {
            selectedCode: '',
            selectedLanguage: jsonArray[0],
        }

    handleLangChange = () => {
        var lang = this.dropdown.value;
        this.props.onSelectLanguage(lang);            
    }

    render() {
        return (
            <div>
                <DropdownList ref={(ref) => this.dropdown = ref}
                    data={jsonArray} 
                    valueField='lang' textField='lang'
                    caseSensitive={false} 
                    minLength={3}
                    filter='contains'
                    onChange={this.handleLangChange} />
            </div>            
        );
    }
}

---

Using createClass syntax which the OP used in his answer Parent

const ParentComponent = React.createClass({
    getInitialState() {
        return {
            language: '',
        };
    },

    handleLanguage: function(langValue) {
        this.setState({language: langValue});
    },

    render() {
         return (
                <div className="col-sm-9">
                    <SelectLanguage onSelectLanguage={this.handleLanguage} /> 
                </div>
        );
});

Child

var json = require("json!../languages.json");
var jsonArray = json.languages;

export const SelectLanguage = React.createClass({
    getInitialState: function() {
        return {
            selectedCode: '',
            selectedLanguage: jsonArray[0],
        };
    },

    handleLangChange: function () {
        var lang = this.refs.dropdown.value;
        this.props.onSelectLanguage(lang);            
    },

    render() {

        return (
            <div>
                <DropdownList ref='dropdown'
                    data={jsonArray} 
                    valueField='lang' textField='lang'
                    caseSensitive={false} 
                    minLength={3}
                    filter='contains'
                    onChange={this.handleLangChange} />
            </div>            
        );
    }
});

JSON:

{ 
"languages":[ 

    { 
    "code": "aaa", 
    "lang": "english" 
    }, 
    { 
    "code": "aab", 
    "lang": "Swedish" 
    }, 
  ] 
}