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

React Router is a complete routing library for React.

React Router keeps your UI in sync with the URL. It has a simple API with powerful features like lazy code loading, dynamic route matching, and location transition handling built right in. Make the URL your first thought, not an after-thought.

Docs & Help

• Tutorial – do this first!
• Guides and API docs
• Troubleshooting guide
• Changelog
• Stack Overflow
• CodePen boilerplate for bug reports

Older Versions:

• 0.13.x - docs / guides / code / upgrade guide
• 1.0.x - docs / code / upgrade guide

For questions and support, please visit our channel on Reactiflux or Stack Overflow.

Browser Support

We support all browsers and environments where React runs.

Installation

Using npm:

$ npm install --save react-router

Then with a module bundler like webpack that supports either CommonJS or ES2015 modules, use as you would anything else:

// using an ES6 transpiler, like babel
import { Router, Route, Link } from 'react-router'

// not using an ES6 transpiler
var Router = require('react-router').Router
var Route = require('react-router').Route
var Link = require('react-router').Link

The UMD build is also available on unpkg:

<script src="https://unpkg.com/react-router/umd/ReactRouter.min.js"></script>

You can find the library on window.ReactRouter.

What's it look like?

import React from 'react'
import { render } from 'react-dom'
import { Router, Route, Link, browserHistory } from 'react-router'

const App = React.createClass({/*...*/})
const About = React.createClass({/*...*/})
const NoMatch = React.createClass({/*...*/})

const Users = React.createClass({
  render() {
    return (
      <div>
        <h1>Users</h1>
        <div className="master">
          <ul>
            {/* use Link to route around the app */}
            {this.state.users.map(user => (
              <li key={user.id}><Link to={`/user/${user.id}`}>{user.name}</Link></li>
            ))}
          </ul>
        </div>
        <div className="detail">
          {this.props.children}
        </div>
      </div>
    )
  }
})

const User = React.createClass({
  componentDidMount() {
    this.setState({
      // route components are rendered with useful information, like URL params
      user: findUserById(this.props.params.userId)
    })
  },

  render() {
    return (
      <div>
        <h2>{this.state.user.name}</h2>
        {/* etc. */}
      </div>
    )
  }
})

// Declarative route configuration (could also load this config lazily
// instead, all you really need is a single root route, you don't need to
// colocate the entire config).
render((
  <Router history={browserHistory}>
    <Route path="/" component={App}>
      <Route path="about" component={About}/>
      <Route path="users" component={Users}>
        <Route path="/user/:userId" component={User}/>
      </Route>
      <Route path="*" component={NoMatch}/>
    </Route>
  </Router>
), document.getElementById('root'))

See more in the Introduction, Guides, and Examples.

Versioning and Stability

We want React Router to be a stable dependency that’s easy to keep current. We take the same approach to versioning as React.js itself: React Versioning Scheme.

Thanks

Thanks to our sponsors for supporting the development of React Router.

React Router was initially inspired by Ember's fantastic router. Many thanks to the Ember team.

Also, thanks to BrowserStack for providing the infrastructure that allows us to run our build in real browsers.