react-router setup

Introduction

Developers cannot build more than one-page web application in React because React is a single-page application (SPA). Therefore, a web application that is built in React will not reload the page. How we can make more than one page then? react-router is the answer to this question. react-router gives us the flexibility to render components dynamically based on the route in the URL. These are the steps how you can set up your react-router in react application.

Installation

As usual, we need to install the package by running this command in the terminal.

npm install react-router-dom// oryarn add react-router-dom

Primary Components

According to react-router documentation, there are three main categories of components in react-router (routers, route matchers, and navigation).

• routers -> <BrowserRouter> and <HashRouter>
• route matchers -> <Route> and <Switch>
• navigation -> <Link>, <NavLink>, and <redirect>

Routers

The difference between <BrowserRouter> and <HashRouter> is the URL link. <HashRouter> could store a hash in the link http://example.com/#/your/page, and usually, we use it to refer to several sections in the page.

We must put a router in the top hierarchy component. I usually place the <BrowserRouter> in the index.js and wrap the <App/> component.

// ./src/index.js// ...import { BrowserRouter as Router } from 'react-router-dom';ReactDOM.render(  <React.StrictMode>    <Router>      <App />    </Router>  </React.StrictMode>,  document.getElementById('root'));

Route Matchers

The idea of route matchers is to declare the conditional rendering components corresponding with the URL. I might say <Route> is similar to "if statement", and <Switch> is similar to switch statement. Take a look at the snippets below.

Using Route

// ./src/App.js// ...import { Route } from 'react-router-dom';function App() {  return (    <div className="App">      <Nav /> {/* I will show this components in the next section */}      <Route path="/about">        <About />      </Route>      <Route path="/portfolio">        <Portfolio />      </Route>      <Route path="/contact">        <Contact />      </Route>      <Route path="/">          <Home />      </Route>    </div>  );}

If we are not using <Switch>, it will render <About /> and <Home /> components at the same time when users go to the localhost:3000/about link. It renders two components at the same time because /about matches with "/about" and "/" paths.

We can solve more than one component at the same time by adding the exact attribute.

<Route exact path="/about">  <About /></Route><Route exact path="/portfolio">  <Portfolio /></Route><Route exact path="/contact">  <Contact /></Route><Route exact path="/">  <Home /></Route>

or we can use the <Switch> component like this snippet below.

Using Switch

// ./src/App.js// ...import { Switch, Route } from 'react-router-dom';function App() {  return (    <div className="App">      <Nav /> {/* I will show this components in the next section */}      <Switch>        <Route path="/about">          <About />        </Route>        <Route path="/portfolio">          <Portfolio />        </Route>        <Route path="/contact">          <Contact />        </Route>        <Route path="/">          <Home />        </Route>      </Switch>    </div>  );}

a quick note about why I put path="/" in the last of Route. If I put path="/" in the beginning, other Route will not render at all. When users go to localhost:3000/about, it will match with '/' first, and others will be ignored.

Navigation

Navigation components allow the website to create a new link in the URL without reloading the page like using an anchor tag (<a>). Whenever we are using the anchor tag, the page will be reloaded, and we cannot do that in SPA.

// ./src/components/Navbar/Navbar.js// ...import { Link } from 'react-router-dom';const Nav = () => {  return (    <nav className={styles.wrapper}>      <Link to="/">Home</Link>      <Link to="/about">About</Link>      <Link to="/portfolio">Portfolio</Link>      <Link to="/contact">Contact</Link>    </nav>  );};export default Nav;

NavLink

The main difference between <Navlink> and <Link> is styling purposes. If we want to give a style when the link is active we can use <NavLink> like the snippet below

<NavLink to="/contact" activeClassName="active">  Contact</NavLink>

It will be rendered to be HTML like this if the users visit /contact.

<a href="/contact" className="active">React</a>

Redirect

If this component renders, it will force to redirect to corresponding with the to prop.

<Redirect to="/login" />

Conclusion

These three primary categories of react-router components are the basis of how we can apply react-router to our project. If we understand these three kinds of categories, it will be easier to implement react-router. I will share another advanced topic about react-router in the next blog.

Repo : https://github.com/raaynaldo/react-router-tutorial