#Space

#Import

import { Space } from '@dnb/eufemia'

#Description

The Space component provides margins within the provided spacing patterns.

#Relevant links

• Source code
• Docs code

The reason this exists is to make your syntax as clean as possible. This way, you see directly in words what the spacing is for every affected component.

#Spacing Table

NB: In some circumstances you may be in need of using 0.25rem (4px) - therefore xx-small also exists, but as a single type. So, combining xx-small and small would not result in 0.25rem, but still remain 1rem.

#Value Format

There are a couple of different ways you can define the spacing types and values:

• Types: small small x-small (combine types up to 10rem)
• number: 2.5 (equivalent to rem)
• string(rem): 2.5rem
• string(px): 40px (gets converted to rem)
• boolean: true (equivalent to small), false (equivalent to zero)

To get a spacing of e.g. 2.5rem (40px), you may combine types large and x-small.

{/* All of these methods will result in the same spacing */}
<Space top="large x-small" right="2.5" bottom="2.5rem" left="40px" />

With React, you can also use an object with the different directions:

{/* All of these methods will result in the same spacing */}
<Space
  space={{
    top: 'large x-small',
    right: '2.5',
    bottom: '2.5rem',
    left: '40px',
  }}
/>

#Components and Spacing

Every component supports the spacing patterns, so it's possible to send in the top, right, bottom, left and space properties directly, like:

<Button top="large x-small medium" />
<Button
  space={{
    top: 'large x-small medium',
  }}
/>

#Spacing shorthands

A shorthand for getting 1rem (most used) is to simply send in a boolean set as true. No given value in JSX means true, so you only need the property key:

{/* Equivalent to top="small" */}
<Button top />
{/* Equivalent to top="small" right="small" bottom="small" left="small" */}
<Button space />

In order to set all four directions at once, you can provide a string as the space value:

<Button space="large x-small medium" />

#Does it not work as expected?

Is margin not giving the expected spacing? That may be due to Margin Collapsing. Margins collapse in the following situations:

• Adjacent siblings
• Completely empty boxes
• Parent and first or last child element

The best solution is to only use one direction of margins, e.g. bottom. Or you can set the collapse property to false.

#Margin collapsing

In order to help handle unwanted margin collapsing in typography elements, see this example.

#Conditional Reset

For resetting spacing (margin: 0) only when no spacing is defined, you can make use of dnb-space__reset.

#Style and Spacing

Every Eufemia component that supports spacing props uses CSS custom properties (e.g. --margin-t-s) on the style attribute to drive responsive margins. When you pass a style prop to a component, your styles and the spacing styles are merged together — spacing properties take precedence.

This means you can safely combine your own styles with spacing:

<Space style={{ color: 'var(--color-sea-green)' }} top="medium">
  ...
</Space>

If you work with raw DOM elements and set styles via setAttribute('style', ...), make sure you preserve any existing style values when adding new ones, so the spacing custom properties are not lost.

const existing = element.getAttribute('style')
const merged = existing
  ? `${existing.replace(/;?\s*$/, '')}; ${style}`
  : style
element.setAttribute('style', merged)