react-router

What is react-router?

The react-router npm package is a declarative routing library for React, allowing you to add navigation functionality to your React applications. It enables you to handle URL routing, match routes to your React components, and manage navigation state in a single-page application (SPA) environment.

What are react-router's main functionalities?

Basic Routing

This code demonstrates how to set up basic routing in a React application using react-router. It includes navigation links and route components that render different components based on the URL path.

import { BrowserRouter as Router, Route, Link } from 'react-router-dom';

function App() {
  return (
    <Router>
      <div>
        <nav>
          <ul>
            <li>
              <Link to='/'>Home</Link>
            </li>
            <li>
              <Link to='/about'>About</Link>
            </li>
          </ul>
        </nav>

        <Route exact path='/' component={Home} />
        <Route path='/about' component={About} />
      </div>
    </Router>
  );
}

function Home() {
  return <h2>Home</h2>;
}

function About() {
  return <h2>About</h2>;
}

Dynamic Routing

This code snippet shows how to implement dynamic routing with path parameters. The User component will render with the appropriate user ID based on the URL.

import { BrowserRouter as Router, Route, Link } from 'react-router-dom';

function App() {
  return (
    <Router>
      <div>
        <ul>
          <li>
            <Link to='/users/1'>User 1</Link>
          </li>
          <li>
            <Link to='/users/2'>User 2</Link>
          </li>
        </ul>

        <Route path='/users/:id' component={User} />
      </div>
    </Router>
  );
}

function User({ match }) {
  return <h2>User ID: {match.params.id}</h2>;
}

Nested Routing

Nested routing allows you to create routes within routes. This example shows a Layout component with a nested Dashboard route.

import { BrowserRouter as Router, Route, Link, Switch } from 'react-router-dom';

function App() {
  return (
    <Router>
      <Route path='/' component={Layout} />
    </Router>
  );
}

function Layout({ match }) {
  return (
    <div>
      <nav>
        <Link to={`${match.url}dashboard`}>Dashboard</Link>
      </nav>
      <Switch>
        <Route path={`${match.path}dashboard`} component={Dashboard} />
      </Switch>
    </div>
  );
}

function Dashboard() {
  return <h2>Dashboard</h2>;
}

Protected Routes

Protected routes are used to restrict access to certain parts of your application. This example shows a route that renders a component only if the user is authenticated, otherwise it redirects to a login page.

import { BrowserRouter as Router, Route, Redirect } from 'react-router-dom';

function App() {
  return (
    <Router>
      <Route path='/protected' render={() => (
        isAuthenticated() ? (
          <ProtectedComponent />
        ) : (
          <Redirect to='/login' />
        )
      )} />
    </Router>
  );
}

function isAuthenticated() {
  // Authentication logic here
  return true;
}

function ProtectedComponent() {
  return <h2>Protected</h2>;
}

Other packages similar to react-router

vue-router

Vue-router is the official router for Vue.js. It provides similar functionalities for Vue applications as react-router does for React applications, including nested routes, dynamic segments, and navigation guards. However, it is designed to work seamlessly with Vue's reactivity system.

reach-router

Reach Router is another routing library for React, which aims to be more accessible and simpler to use than react-router. It has a smaller API surface area and focuses on accessibility by managing focus after route transitions. However, as of my knowledge cutoff in 2023, Reach Router has been officially merged with React Router, and its features have been integrated into React Router v6.

README

react-router is the primary package in the React Router project.

Installation

npm i react-router

Changelog

v7.4.1

Date: 2025-03-28

Security Notice

Fixed a security vulnerability that allowed URL manipulation and potential cache pollution via the Host and X-Forwarded-Host headers due to inadequate port sanitization.

Patch Changes

• react-router - Dedupe calls to route.lazy functions (#13260)
• @react-router/dev - Fix path in prerender error messages (#13257)
• @react-router/dev - Fix typegen for virtual modules when moduleDetection is set to force (#13267)
• @react-router/express - Better validation of x-forwarded-host header to prevent potential security issues (#13309)

Unstable Changes

⚠️ Unstable features are not recommended for production use

• react-router - Fix types on unstable_MiddlewareFunction to avoid type errors when a middleware doesn't return a value (#13311)
• react-router - Add support for route.unstable_lazyMiddleware function to allow lazy loading of middleware logic (#13210)
  • ⚠️ We do not recommend adoption of this API currently as we are likely going to change it prior to the stable release of middleware
  • ⚠️ This may be a breaking change if your app is currently returning unstable_middleware from route.lazy
  • The route.unstable_middleware property is no longer supported in the return value from route.lazy
  • If you want to lazily load middleware, you must use route.unstable_lazyMiddleware
• @react-router/dev - When both future.unstable_middleware and future.unstable_splitRouteModules are enabled, split unstable_clientMiddleware route exports into separate chunks when possible (#13210)
• @react-router/dev - Improve performance of future.unstable_middleware by ensuring that route modules are only blocking during the middleware phase when the unstable_clientMiddleware has been defined (#13210)

Full Changelog: v7.4.0...v7.4.1