React Router DOM is a widely used library in the React ecosystem for building single-page applications with routing capabilities. One of the significant benefits of this library is that it provides a range of features for matching URLs and activating certain components.
What is React Router Dom?
React Router DOM is a dynamic, client-side routing library in the React environment, allowing developers to create robust and accessible web applications. The fundamental idea is to synchronize your UI with the current URL, making your application intuitive and user-friendly.
This library significantly enriches the user experience as it ensures that the users do not need to refresh their browser while navigating through the application. Moreover, the implementation for this is straightforward.
Installing React Router DOM
To get this set up, we first need to install the react-router-dom library. This can easily be done by running the following commands at your terminal:
npm install react-router-dom
This command installs the React Router DOM package into our project. Upon successful installation, we can now import the necessary component from ‘react-router-dom’ into our application.
Setting up React Router Dom
Now that we have successfully installed this onto our project, it’s time to implement it. Let’s take a look at a basic implementation of react-router-dom:
import React from 'react';
import {BrowserRouter as Router, Route, Switch} from 'react-router-dom';
import Component1 from './Component1';
import Component2 from './Component2';
function App() {
return (
<Router>
<Switch>
<Route exact path="/" component={Component1} />
<Route path="/component2" component={Component2} />
</Switch>
</Router>
);
}
export default App;
In the code above, we have imported the necessary components from the React Router DOM library.
Understanding the Code
-
The `
` component uses the HTML5 history API (pushState, replaceState, and the popstate event) to keep the UI in sync with the URL. We’ve given it an alias of ` ` for convenience. - Within the Router, we have placed a `
` component. This React Router component searches through its children ` ` components to render the first one where the path prop matches the location’s current pathname. - Next steps involve the `
` component. This is where the magic happens. The Route component is used to define the different routes of our application. We defined two paths, a default path (‘/’) which loads Component1, and another path (‘/component2’) which would load Component2 when accessed.
The concept of routing is fundamental to creating single-page applications in React. With React Router DOM, it becomes effortless and intuitive to implement.
Additional Features
React Router Dom offers many more features other than the ones mentioned above. For example, Nested Routing, URL Parameters, Programmatically navigation, etc., are some of the additional features that this library provides to enhance the developer experience.
Understanding and mastering React Router Dom is crucial for any React Developer as it forms the basis for creating dynamic and interactive web applications.
