Unlock the Power of React Router Hooks
A New Era of Efficient Routing
React Router, the most popular routing solution for React apps, has taken a significant leap forward with the introduction of Hooks. These Hooks provide developers with new ways to handle router state and other essential use cases. In this tutorial, we’ll dive into the world of React Router Hooks and explore how they can minimize code lines in a component.
How Do Hooks Work with React Router?
To demonstrate the power of Hooks, let’s create a React project and set up pages using Vite. We’ll use the createBrowserRouter, createRoutesFromComponents, RouterProvider, and Route components from the react-router-dom package to configure client-side routing in our React app.
The Benefits of React Router Hooks
Before Hooks, accessing the current pathname of the URL inside a page component required passing the page component to the component prop of the old Route component. This approach made the component harder to read and maintain. With React Router Hooks, page components can access history, location, and match objects without injecting props.
Exploring React Router Hooks
useParams
The useParams Hook returns an object containing key-value pairs of any parameters that exist in a URL. For example, let’s say you have a User page component that accepts an id as a parameter in the URL. You can access the parameter using the useParams Hook.
useNavigate
In React Router v6, the useHistory Hook was discontinued, providing useNavigate as its alternative. The useNavigate Hook returns a function that lets you handle route changes and navigate programmatically.
useLocation
The useLocation Hook allows you to access the location object that represents the active URL. The value of the location object changes whenever the user navigates to a new URL.
useMatch
The useMatch Hook returns the match data about a route relative to the current route. It matches the active URL with a given path, similar to how the Route component works.
useNavigation
The useNavigation Hook gives developers access to properties that show the state of a currently rendered route. For example, it can indicate when a route is “loading” or when a form on the route is “submitting.”
useLoaderData
The useLoaderData Hook allows you to grab the loader values. For example, in our Posts component, we will use the Hook to grab all the posts and display them.
useActionData
The useActionData Hook allows developers to grab the values action returned. For example, in our Posts component, we will use the Hook to grab the submitted data and display it.
useRouteLoaderData
The useRouteLoaderData Hook makes the loader of a currently rendered route available to any other route that needs it.
useBeforeUnload
The useBeforeUnload Hook is useful for defining instructions to run before a route or element leaves the screen.
useSubmit
The useSubmit Hook allows developers to manually submit a form instead of using a <Form> component.
Get Started with React Router Hooks
Now that you’ve learned about the power of React Router Hooks, it’s time to take full advantage of what React Router has to offer. With these Hooks, you can write cleaner components with less boilerplate code. Start exploring today!