@angular/router

What is @angular/router?

The @angular/router package provides navigation and URL manipulation capabilities for Angular applications. It allows developers to define routes, navigate between them, handle route parameters, and guard routes among other functionalities.

What are @angular/router's main functionalities?

Route Configuration

Defines routes in an Angular application, associating paths with components.

const routes: Routes = [
  { path: 'home', component: HomeComponent },
  { path: 'about', component: AboutComponent }
];

@NgModule({
  imports: [RouterModule.forRoot(routes)],
  exports: [RouterModule]
})
export class AppRoutingModule { }

Router Outlet

A placeholder that Angular dynamically fills based on the current router state.

<router-outlet></router-outlet>

Navigation

Programmatically navigate to different routes within an Angular application.

constructor(private router: Router) { }

navigateToHome() {
  this.router.navigate(['/home']);
}

Route Parameters

Access parameters for a given route, often used for fetching data based on the URL.

constructor(private route: ActivatedRoute) { }

ngOnInit() {
  this.route.paramMap.subscribe(params => {
    this.userId = params.get('id');
  });
}

Route Guards

Protect routes with guards that can allow or prevent navigation to a route based on logic such as authentication.

@Injectable({ providedIn: 'root' })
export class AuthGuard implements CanActivate {
  canActivate(
    next: ActivatedRouteSnapshot,
    state: RouterStateSnapshot): Observable<boolean> | Promise<boolean> | boolean {
    return this.authService.isAuthenticated();
  }
}

Other packages similar to @angular/router

react-router

React Router is a routing library for React, similar to @angular/router but for React applications. It provides components for navigation, route matching, and history handling. While @angular/router is designed specifically for Angular, React Router is tailored to React's component structure.

vue-router

Vue Router is the official router for Vue.js. It integrates deeply with Vue.js core to make building Single Page Applications with Vue.js a breeze. It offers features similar to @angular/router but is designed to work seamlessly with Vue.js components and reactivity system.

reach-router

Reach Router is a small, simple router for React that is accessible and easy to use. It is similar to @angular/router in providing navigation and route matching, but it focuses on simplicity and accessibility. It has now been succeeded by React Router, which has incorporated its accessibility features.

README

Router

Managing state transitions is one of the hardest parts of building applications. This is especially true on the web, where you also need to ensure that the state is reflected in the URL. In addition, we often want to split applications into multiple bundles and load them on demand. Doing this transparently isn’t trivial.

The Angular router is designed to solve these problems. Using the router, you can declaratively specify application state, manage state transitions while taking care of the URL, and load components on demand. In this article I will discuss the API of the router, as well as the mental model and the design principles behind it.

Read the in-depth overview of the Router here.