Redux-First Routing

Achieve client-side routing the Redux way:

• Read location data from the store.
• Update the location by dispatching navigation actions.
• Let middleware handle the side-effect of history navigation.

Learn more: An Introduction to the Redux-First Routing Model

Ideology

This library wraps history and provides a minimal, framework-agnostic base for accomplishing Redux-first routing. It does not provide the actual router component.

Instead, you can pair it with a compatible router to create a complete routing solution. If you're coming from React Router, you might compare this package to react-router-redux.

Installation

Install the library from npm:

npm install --save redux-first-routing

Or, use the following script tag to access the latest UMD build on window.ReduxFirstRouting:

<script src="https://unpkg.com/redux-first-routing/dist/redux-first-routing.min.js"></script>

Usage

Basic Usage

import { combineReducers, applyMiddleware, createStore } from 'redux'
import { createBrowserHistory, routerReducer, routerMiddleware, startListener, push } from 'redux-first-routing'
import { otherReducers } from './reducers'
 
// Create the history object
const history = createBrowserHistory()
 
// Add the reducer, which adds location state to the store
const rootReducer = combineReducers({
  ...otherReducers,
  router: routerReducer // Convention is to use the "router" property
})
  
// Build the middleware, which intercepts navigation actions and calls the corresponding history method
const middleware = routerMiddleware(history)
 
// Create the store
const store = createStore(rootReducer, {}, applyMiddleware(middleware))
 
// Start the history listener, which automatically dispatches actions to keep the store in sync with the history
startListener(history, store)
 
// Now you can read the location from the store!
let currentLocation = store.getState().router.pathname
 
// You can also subscribe to changes in the location!
let unsubscribe = store.subscribe(() => {
  let previousLocation = currentLocation
  currentLocation = store.getState().router.pathname
 
  if (previousLocation !== currentLocation) {
    console.log(`Location changed from ${previousLocation} to ${currentLocation}`)
    // Render your application reactively here (optionally using a compatible router)
  }
})
 
// And you can dispatch navigation actions from anywhere!
store.dispatch(push('/about'))

State Shape

There are dozens of ways to design the state shape of the location data, and this project must by nature choose an opinionated design:

// URL: www.example.com/nested/path?with=query#and-hash
{
  router: {
    pathname: '/nested/path/',
    search: '?with=query',
    queries: {
      with: 'query'
    },
    hash: '#and-hash'
  },
  ... // other redux state
}

The query-string package is used internally to parse the search string into the queries object.

Compatible Routers

For a router to work seamlessly with redux-first-routing, it must not be tightly coupled to the browser history/navigation code. The following libraries meet that criteria by providing router components that focus solely on the routing and/or rendering part:

• Universal Router (framework-agnostic)
• Redux JSON Router (React)

For examples of usage, see Recipies. To add to this list, feel free to send a pull request.

Documentation

• API
• Recipies
  • Usage with Universal Router
  • Usage with Redux JSON Router
  • Building your own connected component

Credits

The concept of "Redux-first routing" isn't particularly new — everything in this library has existed in one form or another across various other Redux routing libraries and packages. You may find a long list of similar projects (some of which may be classified as Redux-first routing libraries) here:

• https://github.com/markerikson/redux-ecosystem-links/blob/master/routing.md

Notable influences:

• react-router-redux
• redux-little-router
• universal-redux-router

Contributing

Contributions are welcome and are greatly appreciated! 🎉

Feel free to file an issue, start a discussion, or send a pull request.

License

MIT