getLayout

This method exists only on Animated.ValueXY instances. The documentation explains it here http://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/animated.html#getlayout.

This is a helper that just saves you some code. The equivalence of what it generates is something like so:

this._animatedValue = new Animated.ValueXY();

{
	left: this._animatedValue.x,
	top: this._animatedValue.y
}

That would be provided to an Animated.View or other Animated component.

<Animated.View
  style={{
    left: this._animatedValue.x,
    top: this._animatedValue.y,
  }}
/>

But with the helper method you would only need to do

<Animated.Value style={this._animatedValue.getLayout()} />