javascript - How to create Vue.js slot programmatically?

Question

I have the following component with a slot:

<template>
    <div>
        <h2>{{ someProp }}</h2>
        <slot></slot>
    </div>
</template>

For some reasons, I have to manually instantiate this component. This is how I am doing it:

const Constr = Vue.extend(MyComponent);
const instance = new Constr({
    propsData: { someProp: 'My Heading' }
}).$mount(body);

The problem is: I am not able to create slot contents programmatically. So far, I can create simple string based slot:

const Constr = Vue.extend(MyComponent);
const instance = new Constr({
    propsData: { someProp: 'My Heading' }
});

// Creating simple slot
instance.$slots.default = ['Hello'];

instance.$mount(body);

The question is - how can I create $slots programmatically and pass it to the instance I am creating using new?

Note: I am not using a full build of Vue.js (runtime only). So I don't have a Vue.js compiler available to compile the template on the fly.

Answer 1

I looked into TypeScript definition files of Vue.js and I found an undocumented function on Vue component instance: $createElement(). My guess is, it is the same function that is passed to render(createElement) function of the component. So, I am able to solve it as:

const Constr = Vue.extend(MyComponent);
const instance = new Constr({
    propsData: { someProp: 'My Heading' }
});

// Creating simple slot
const node = instance.$createElement('div', ['Hello']);
instance.$slots.default = [node];

instance.$mount(body);

But this is clearly undocumented and hence questionable approach. I will not mark it answered if there is some better approach available.