Detect Route Change with react-router

Question

I have to implement some business logic depending on browsing history.

What I want to do is something like this:

reactRouter.onUrlChange(url => {
   this.history.push(url);
});

Is there any way to receive a callback from react-router when the URL gets updated?

Answer 1

You can make use of history.listen() function when trying to detect the route change. Considering you are using react-router v4, wrap your component with withRouter HOC to get access to the history prop.

history.listen() returns an unlisten function. You'd use this to unregister from listening.

You can configure your routes like

index.js

ReactDOM.render(
      <BrowserRouter>
            <AppContainer>
                   <Route exact path="/" Component={...} />
                   <Route exact path="/Home" Component={...} />
           </AppContainer>
        </BrowserRouter>,
  document.getElementById('root')
);

and then in AppContainer.js

class App extends Component {

  componentWillMount() {
    this.unlisten = this.props.history.listen((location, action) => {
      console.log("on route change");
    });
  }
  componentWillUnmount() {
      this.unlisten();
  }
  render() {
     return (
         <div>{this.props.children}</div>
      );
  }
}
export default withRouter(App);

From the history docs:

You can listen for changes to the current location using history.listen:

history.listen((location, action) => {
      console.log(`The current URL is ${location.pathname}${location.search}${location.hash}`)
  console.log(`The last navigation action was ${action}`)
})

The location object implements a subset of the window.location interface, including:

**location.pathname** - The path of the URL
**location.search** - The URL query string
**location.hash** - The URL hash fragment

Locations may also have the following properties:

location.state - Some extra state for this location that does not reside in the URL (supported in createBrowserHistory and createMemoryHistory)

location.key - A unique string representing this location (supported in createBrowserHistory and createMemoryHistory)

The action is one of PUSH, REPLACE, or POP depending on how the user got to the current URL.

When you are using react-router v3 you can make use of history.listen() from history package as mentioned above or you can also make use browserHistory.listen()

You can configure and use your routes like

import {browserHistory} from 'react-router';

class App extends React.Component {

    componentDidMount() {
          this.unlisten = browserHistory.listen( location =>  {
                console.log('route changes');

           });

    }
    componentWillUnmount() {
        this.unlisten();

    }
    render() {
        return (
               <Route path="/" onChange={yourHandler} component={AppContainer}>
                   <IndexRoute component={StaticContainer}  />
                   <Route path="/a" component={ContainerA}  />
                   <Route path="/b" component={ContainerB}  />
            </Route>
        )
    }
} 

Answer 2

If you want to listen to the history object globally, you'll have to create it yourself and pass it to the Router. Then you can listen to it with its listen() method:

// Use Router from react-router, not BrowserRouter.
import { Router } from 'react-router';

// Create history object.
import createHistory from 'history/createBrowserHistory';
const history = createHistory();

// Listen to history changes.
// You can unlisten by calling the constant (`unlisten()`).
const unlisten = history.listen((location, action) => {
  console.log(action, location.pathname, location.state);
});

// Pass history to Router.
<Router history={history}>
   ...
</Router>

Even better if you create the history object as a module, so you can easily import it anywhere you may need it (e.g. import history from './history';

Answer 3

I came across this question as I was attempting to focus the ChromeVox screen reader to the top of the "screen" after navigating to a new screen in a React single page app. Basically trying to emulate what would happen if this page was loaded by following a link to a new server-rendered web page.

This solution doesn't require any listeners, it uses withRouter() and the componentDidUpdate() lifecycle method to trigger a click to focus ChromeVox on the desired element when navigating to a new url path.

---

Implementation

I created a "Screen" component which is wrapped around the react-router switch tag which contains all the apps screens.

<Screen>
  <Switch>
    ... add <Route> for each screen here...
  </Switch>
</Screen>

---

Screen.tsx Component

Note: This component uses React + TypeScript

import React from 'react'
import { RouteComponentProps, withRouter } from 'react-router'

class Screen extends React.Component<RouteComponentProps> {
  public screen = React.createRef<HTMLDivElement>()
  public componentDidUpdate = (prevProps: RouteComponentProps) => {
    if (this.props.location.pathname !== prevProps.location.pathname) {
      // Hack: setTimeout delays click until end of current
      // event loop to ensure new screen has mounted.
      window.setTimeout(() => {
        this.screen.current!.click()
      }, 0)
    }
  }
  public render() {
    return <div ref={this.screen}>{this.props.children}</div>
  }
}

export default withRouter(Screen)

I had tried using focus() instead of click(), but click causes ChromeVox to stop reading whatever it is currently reading and start again where I tell it to start.

Advanced note: In this solution, the navigation <nav> which inside the Screen component and rendered after the <main> content is visually positioned above the main using css order: -1;. So in pseudo code:

<Screen style={{ display: 'flex' }}>
  <main>
  <nav style={{ order: -1 }}>
<Screen>

If you have any thoughts, comments, or tips about this solution, please add a comment.