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.

Instructions

1. Fork this gist
2. On your own copy, go through the listed readings and answer associated questions
3. Comment a link to your forked copy on the original gist

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 />?

• It is a router that uses the HTML5 history API to keep your UI in sync with the URL.

4. Why would we use <BrowserRouter /> in our apps?

• We would use it to be able to navigate between pages on our app and keep track of the URL while doing so.

Route Matchers

5. What does the <Route /> component do?

• It renders a UI when its path matches the URL.

6. How does the <Route /> component check whether it should render something?

• It knows to render the child of its current component when its path matches the current component URL.

7. What does the <Switch /> component do?

• It renders the first Route that matches the location.

8. How does it decide what to render?

• It will only render the first child that matches the path.

Route Changers

9. What does the <Link /> component do? How does a user interact with it?

• It provides declarative, accessible navigation around an application. It is clickable for the user and will navigate to another component.

10. What does the <NavLink /> component do? How does a user interact with it?

• It is a special version of a Link that adds styling elements to the rendered element when it matches the current URL. It can specify for a user which component is active in a navigation bar.

11. What does the <Redirect /> component do?

• It will navigate to a new location which will overrride the current location in the history stack.