This gist contains a short assignment I'd like everyone to complete before our formal lesson. The prework involves reading some of the React Router documentation, and will allow us to keep the lesson more hands on.
- Fork this gist
- On your own copy, go through the listed readings and answer associated questions
- Comment a link to your forked copy on the original gist
React Router is a library that allows us to make our single page React applications mimic the behavior of multipage apps. It provides the ability to use browser history, allowing users to navigate with forward / back buttons and bookmark links to specific views of the app. Most modern sites use some form of routing. React Router exposes this functionality through a series of components. Let's start by looking at the overall structure of an app using router:
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Take a look at the quick start page of the React Router docs. Take note of the syntax and organization of the page. No worries if this looks unclear right now! (nothing to answer here)
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What package do we need to install to use React Router?
In order to use React Router we need to use 'npm install react-router-dom'.
React Router provides a series of helpful components that allow our apps to use routing. These can be split into roughly 3 categories:
- Routers
- Route Matcher
- Route Changers
Any code that uses a React-Router-provided component must be wrapped in a router component. There are lots of router components we can use, but we'll focus on one in particular. Let's look into the docs to learn more.
- What is a
<BrowserRouter />?
A <BrowserRouter /> is a router component that 'react-router-dom' provides and that Create React App supports this out of the box in development. It uses HTML5 history to keep the UI in sync with the URL.
- Why would we use
<BrowserRouter />in our apps?
It seems like <BrowserRouter /> is the preferred choice because it uses regular URL paths at it has support from Create React App. Although, it looks it requires for a server to be configured correctly in order for it to be used.
- What does the
<Route />component do?
The <Route /> component basicallly renders some UI when a location matches the route's URL path.
- How does the
<Route />component check whether it should render something?
It checks the current URL path to the path on the <Route /> to see if it should render something.
- What does the
<Switch />component do?
Renders the first child that matches the location. It renders a route exclusively which means it only allows one route to render.
- How does it decide what to render?
It decides which route to render based off of what <Route /> says if the URL is a match.
- What does the
<Link />component do? How does a user interact with it?
The <Link /> component provides declarative, accessible navigation around the application. A user interacts with the link by being able to click on the link.
- What does the
<NavLink />component do? How does a user interact with it?
The <NavLink /> component is a special version of the <Link /> that will add styling attributes to the rendered element when it matches the current URL. The user can click on this link as well.
- What does the
<Redirect />component do?
The <Redirect /> navigates to a new location. The new location will override the current location in the history stack, like server-side redirects (HTTP 3xx) do.