React / react-router 5 - basic routing example

In this article, we would like to show you a basic routing example in React.

To use routing in React, the first thing you need to do is install react-router-dom@5 with command line inside your project.

npm install react-router-dom@5

Then you have to import:

• BrowserRouter (e.g. as Router) - that contains core routing logic,
• Switch - that searches through its children (<Route> elements) to find the one whose path matches the current URL,
• Route - to render some components when its path matches the current URL,
• Link - to navigate through the routes.

By using the following code:

import { BrowserRouter as Router, Switch, Route, Link } from 'react-router-dom';

In below example we create three pages handled by the react-router:

• Home page,
• Gallery page,
• About page.

As we click on the different <Link> components, the router renders the matching <Route> components.

Simple routing example: 

import React from 'react';
import { BrowserRouter as Router, Switch, Route, Link } from 'react-router-dom';

// Pages ----------------------

const Home = () => {
  return <h2>Home</h2>;
};

const Gallery = () => {
  return <h2>Gallery</h2>;
};

const About = () => {
  return <h2>About</h2>;
};

// Routing --------------------

const App = () => {
  return (
    <Router>
      <div>
        <div>
          <Link to="/">Home</Link>
          <Link to="/gallery">Gallery</Link>
          <Link to="/about">About</Link>
        </div>
        <Switch>
          <Route exact path="/">
            <Home />
          </Route>
          <Route path="/about">
            <About />
          </Route>
          <Route path="/gallery">
            <Gallery />
          </Route>
        </Switch>
      </div>
    </Router>
  );
};

export default App;

References

1. https://v5.reactrouter.com/web/example/basic