May 28, 2023

Detect Route Change with react-router


react-router v6

In react-router v6, this can be done by combining the useLocation and useEffect hooks

import { useLocation } from 'react-router-dom';

const MyComponent = () => {
  const location = useLocation()

  React.useEffect(() => {
    // runs on location, i.e. route, change
    console.log('handle route change here', location)
  }, [location])
  ...
}

For convenient reuse, you can do this in a custom useLocationChange hook

// runs action(location) on location, i.e. route, change
const useLocationChange = (action) => {
  const location = useLocation()
  React.useEffect(() => { action(location) }, [location])
}

const MyComponent1 = () => {
  useLocationChange((location) => { 
    console.log('handle route change here', location) 
  })
  ...
}

const MyComponent2 = () => {
  useLocationChange((location) => { 
    console.log('and also here', location) 
  })
  ...
}

If you also need to see the previous route on change, you can combine with a usePrevious hook

const usePrevious = (value) => {
  const ref = React.useRef()
  React.useEffect(() => { ref.current = value })

  return ref.current
}

const useLocationChange = (action) => {
  const location = useLocation()
  const prevLocation = usePrevious(location)
  React.useEffect(() => { 
    action(location, prevLocation) 
  }, [location])
}

const MyComponent1 = () => {
  useLocationChange((location, prevLocation) => { 
    console.log('changed from', prevLocation, 'to', location) 
  })
  ...
}

It’s important to note that all the above fire on the first client route being mounted, as well as subsequent changes. If that’s a problem, use the latter example and check that a prevLocation exists before doing anything.

Leave a Reply