React Router Prework.md

React Router Prework

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.

Questions / Readings

Router Overview

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:

1. 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)

2. What package do we need to install to use React Router? react-router-dom

Router Components

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

Routers

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.

3. What is a <BrowserRouter />? Usees regular URL paths, core component that wraps entire app. Very specific w URL, server needs to serve all pages at same URL

4. Why would we use <BrowserRouter /> in our apps? Best-looking URLs

Route Matchers

5. What does the <Route /> component do? Renders the most specific component w matching URL, child of Switch

6. How does the <Route /> component check whether it should render something? Matches the beginning of the URL,

7. What does the <Switch /> component do? It is the parent of Route

8. How does it decide what to render? Searches through children to find the most specific path

You should put s with more specific (typically longer) paths before less-specific ones.

Route Changers

9. What does the <Link /> component do? How does a user interact with it? It creates links within application that the user clicks on to go to different pages.

10. What does the <NavLink /> component do? How does a user interact with it? The is a special type of that can style itself as “active” when its to prop matches the current location.

11. What does the <Redirect /> component do? Any time that you want to force navigation, you can render a . When a renders, it will navigate using its to prop.