Platform Specific Code

When building a cross-platform app, the need to write different code for different platforms may arise. This can always be achieved by organizing the various components in different folders:

/common/components/
/android/components/
/ios/components/

Another option may be naming the components differently depending on the platform they are going to be used in:

BigButtonIOS.js
BigButtonAndroid.js

But React Native provides two alternatives to easily organize your code separating it by platform:

Platform specific extensions

React Native will detect when a file has a .ios. or .android. extension and load the right file for each platform when requiring them from other components.

For example, you can have these files in your project:

BigButton.ios.js
BigButton.android.js

With this setup, you can just require the files from a different component without paying attention to the platform in which the app will run.

import BigButton from './components/BigButton';

React Native will import the correct component for the running platform.

Platform module

A module is provided by React Native to detect what is the platform in which the app is running. This piece of functionality can be useful when only small parts of a component are platform specific.

var { Platform } = ReactNative;

var styles = StyleSheet.create({
  height: (Platform.OS === 'ios') ? 200 : 100,
});

Platform.OS will be ios when running in iOS and android when running in an Android device or simulator.

There is also a Platform.select method available, that given an object containing Platform.OS as keys, returns the value for the platform you are currently running on.

var { Platform } = ReactNative;

var styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    ...Platform.select({
      ios: {
        backgroundColor: 'red',
      },
      android: {
        backgroundColor: 'blue',
      },
    }),
  },
});

This will result in a container having flex: 1 on both platforms and backgroundColor - red on iOS and blue on Android.

Since it accepts any value, you can also use it to return platform specific component, like below:

var Component = Platform.select({
  ios: () => require('ComponentIOS'),
  android: () => require('ComponentAndroid'),
})();

<Component />;

Detecting Android version

On Android, the Platform module can be also used to detect which is the version of the Android Platform in which the app is running

var {Platform} = ReactNative;

if(Platform.Version === 21){
  console.log('Running on Lollipop!');
}