[Feature]: Allow more regex for paths

[dbibbens]

What is the new or updated feature that you are suggesting?

update current route.path to allow more conditional regex paths for multiple conditions like in v5.

v5 route: /(wines|whiskeys|sakes|beers)/:id/:productName?

Why should this feature be included?

current v6 doesnt include this anymore. only allow strict routes.

[SafaAlfulaij]

This is what currently stops me from moving to V6. Moving the validation logic to components is not suitable IMOH, and waste resources.

I would suggest that instead of providing arbitrary regex in each path, we define some formats in the config level, then use them within paths. This also could be the only way to use regex within paths.

For example, Router's formatsConfig prop:

{
  "uuid": /([0-9a-f]{8}-[0-9a-f]{4}-[1-5][0-9a-f]{3}-[89ab][0-9a-f]{3}-[0-9a-f]{12})/,
  "drinks": /(wines|whiskeys|sakes|beers)/
}

Then use them within paths: Note: The curly brackets is just an example. Any other format that does this is fine.

<Route path="{drinks}/:id{uuid}" element={<Teams />}>
// or
<Route path="{drinks}/id:uuid" element={<Teams />}>
// or
<Route path="{drinks}/{uuid:id}" element={<Teams />}>

Or as a separate validation prop:

<Route path="{drinks}/:id" validate={{ id: 'uuid' }} element={<Teams />}>

Inspired from UI-Router

[wintercounter]

I was also about to open a feature request for a similar case. In my codebase, I heavily rely on path-to-regexp features. The upgrade docs say to move such logic at the component level, but for me, that's not possible, paths are set by users from an admin interface where components don't (and can't) include such logic.

I was thinking if we can have a plugin-like solution where we can supply a pathParser prop to Router. This would allow using any custom solution we need, keeping the base library small and dependency-free, but allowing people to create 3rd party community packages to add support back to path-to-regexp for example. I think this could be a win-win solution for all parties.

[justrealmilk]

While an API for 3rd party path parsing sounds cool, I think this functionality is pretty basic and popular. Unsure why it was removed.

At the top of my switch, I have

<Switch>
  <Route path='/:membershipType([1|2|3|4|5])/:membershipId([0-9]+)/:characterId([0-9]+)?' component={ProfileRoutes} />
  ...

Am I now supposed to write a route for /1-5/?

[nuintun]

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/URL_Pattern_API

[Vincz]

I agree with all of the above. The pattern matching was handled nicely with v5, why remove such a critical feature?

[queengooborg]

+1 for getting this functionality added back in. Just like optional routing parameters, this was such a useful (and critical feature), and it's not clear why this functionality was removed...we're gonna have to stay on v5 because of it. I'd love to hear a reasoning from the package maintainers as to what led to this surprising and large change.

[wintercounter]

They justified the removal in the changelog/upgrade docs. The main reason is size, path-to-regexp is big. I also believe it has to do a bit with Remix as they are using file-system-based routing, just like Next and folder/filenames don't support most of the regexp syntax characters. Yet I don't see any reason not to provide an API to be able to extend. Some response from the team would be nice regarding this topic, at least to know if they consider this. Not having this will keep me on v5 forever for sure.

On Mon, Dec 6, 2021 at 9:46 PM queengooborg @.***> wrote:

+1 for getting this functionality added back in. Just like optional routing parameters, this was such a useful (and critical feature), and it's not clear why this functionality was removed...we're gonna have to stay on v5 because of it. I'd love to hear a reasoning from the package maintainers as to what led to this surprising and large change.

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[bluepeter]

Likewise. In my opinion, it's a big step backwards. Removing (presumably) widely-used functionality with the terse note only to "remove it and simplify your route paths" is upsetting. It's a massive breaking change. Reducing file size is great, but this feels like an over-optimization at the expense of better functionality and backwards compatibility.

[singggum3b]

A lot of useful feature has been removed from v6. I think overly obsessive with the package size is really weighting on the usefulness of the library. What if the majority of user has to workaround those feature anyway, or just simply refuse to upgrade to v6?

[bluepeter]

The maintainers aren't responding to the concerns. As others mentioned, we are looking into https://github.com/molefrog/wouter as we doubt that v5 will be maintained, and we can't use the reduced feature v6.

[wintercounter]

Nice, the matcher prop does exactly what we wish for here and it has a react-router compatible API. Thanks for sharing.

On Mon, Dec 13, 2021, 16:44 bluepeter @.***> wrote:

The maintainers aren't responding to the concerns. As others mentioned, we are looking into https://github.com/molefrog/wouter as we doubt that v5 will be maintained, and we can't use the reduced feature v6.

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[videni]

what is the solution at the moment?

      <Route path="/store" element={ <Products />}>
        <Route  path="nodes" element={<Nodes />} />
        <Route  path="checkout/:productId" element={<Checkout />} />
      </Route >

I got store/checkout/123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426655440006 , it always render Products not the Checkout , but changing uuid to an integer , it works.

[kulakowka]

@videni it's similar to my problem with symbol - https://github.com/remix-run/react-router/issues/8525

[videni]

@kulakowka, however , it works after changing it to

<Route path="/store" element={ <Products />} />
<Route  path="/store/nodes" element={<Nodes />} />
<Route  path="/store/checkout/:productId" element={<Checkout />} />

[james-Ballyhoo]

Wish I'd known this had been removed before starting a migration from 5 to 6.

The migration docs did not make it clear this would be a breaking change, it's buried half way down the page as a side note.

[paul23-git]

So what's the solution for this? I get redirected here on other bugs but there doesn't seem to be any solution provided?

In our case we depend on the functionality to extract the language parameters from the path seemlessly:

example.com/en-us/my-store

and

example.com/my-store

Where the language is grabbed by doing

<Route path={"/:lang([a-z]{2}-[a-z]{2})"}>

This must be possible right? The migration on the website stated nothing special about this, and as we also updated to a new version of react (and all other libraries) downgrading isn't really possible.

[aress31]

This is what currently stops me from moving to V6. Moving the validation logic to components is not suitable IMOH, and waste resources.

I would suggest that instead of providing arbitrary regex in each path, we define some formats in the config level, then use them within paths. This also could be the only way to use regex within paths.

For example, Router's formatsConfig prop:

{
  "uuid": /([0-9a-f]{8}-[0-9a-f]{4}-[1-5][0-9a-f]{3}-[89ab][0-9a-f]{3}-[0-9a-f]{12})/,
  "drinks": /(wines|whiskeys|sakes|beers)/
}

Then use them within paths: Note: The curly brackets is just an example. Any other format that does this is fine.

<Route path="{drinks}/:id{uuid}" element={<Teams />}>
// or
<Route path="{drinks}/id:uuid" element={<Teams />}>
// or
<Route path="{drinks}/{uuid:id}" element={<Teams />}>

Or as a separate validation prop:

<Route path="{drinks}/:id" validate={{ id: 'uuid' }} element={<Teams />}>

Inspired from UI-Router

This would be perfect for my current use case, I vote for this solution. Any update on this?

[JaroVDH]

This is a required feature for us to move to v6. Handling it inside the route element isn't an option either, as those routes then won't fall back to other routes.

We can't simply 'rethink all our routes', they're already being used. Being told to do so is rather insulting, imo. Like everything is some kind of hobby project.

[cody-elhard]

I know this is not a clean solution and creates some ugly URL's, but if you need a hack you can base64 encode the param you want to pass. In my instance I have the following

<Routes>
    <Route path="/" element={<Root />} />
    <Route path="/posts/:gid" element={<SinglePost />} />
</Routes>

function Root() {
    <Link to={`/posts/${btoa(post.id)}`}> {post.title} </Link>
}

function SinglePost() {
  const params = useParams();
  console.log('params', atob(params.gid)); // gid is base64 encoded to work with react router

  return (
    <div>
      A post route
    </div>
  )
}

[tpict]

The lack of regex is an issue for brownfield projects with poor URL design. AFAIK if I wanted to mount a param-dependent component on all routes matching /base/(one hundred different URLs)/:myParam, under V6 I'd have to write them all out explicitly, or write the param matching code manually (or just reinstall path-to-regexp and call it with the old regex path).

[aliakbarazizi]

I was in the middle of the migration and saw this, and stopped doing that now my plan is to migrate to another library

this is a huge step back for this library.

[bluepeter]

Just an update that we have been able to successfully migrate to v6. A few code snippets that helped us...

The following 2 code snippets work together:

                <Route path="site/:siteId">                                                                
                  {viewLevel(<Site />, true)}                                                              
                  <Route path="session/:sessionId">                                                        
                    {viewLevel(<Session />, true)}                                                         
                    <Route path="page/:pageId">                                                            
                      {viewLevel(<Page />, true)}         

const viewLevel = (element, modals = false) =>
  !!element && (
    <Route
      element={
        <>
          {element}
          <Outlet />
        </>
      }
    >
      <Route element={null} index />
      {modals && <Route element={null} path=":modal" />}
      {viewerRoutes}
    </Route>
  );

And the following two work together...

<Route element={<TryFixUrl />} path="*" />

const TryFixUrl = () => {
  const path = window.location.pathname.replace(/^\/$/, "");
  return (
    <Navigate
      replace
      to={
        path.endsWith("view")
          ? path.replace(/[^/]+\/([^/]+)/, "$1") + window.location.search
          : "/404"
      }
    />
  );
};

[wintercounter]

You successfully handled 1 specific case from many with an ugly hack. This just validates stronger the concerns many of us have.

On Fri, May 20, 2022, 19:20 bluepeter @.***> wrote:

Just an update that we have been able to successfully migrate to v6. A few code snippets that helped us...

The following 2 code snippets work together:

            <Route path="site/:siteId">
              {viewLevel(<Site />, true)}
              <Route path="session/:sessionId">
                {viewLevel(<Session />, true)}
                <Route path="page/:pageId">
                  {viewLevel(<Page />, true)}

const viewLevel = (element, modals = false) => !!element && ( <Route element={ <> {element} <Outlet /> </> } > <Route element={null} index /> {modals && <Route element={null} path=":modal" />} {viewerRoutes} </Route> );

And the following two work together...

<Route element={<TryFixUrl />} path="*" />

const TryFixUrl = () => { const path = window.location.pathname.replace(/^/$/, ""); return ( <Navigate replace to={ path.endsWith("view") ? path.replace(/[^/]+/([^/]+)/, "$1") + window.location.search : "/404" } /> ); };

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[GlebAmbrazhevich]

The lack of regex is an issue for brownfield projects with poor URL design. AFAIK if I wanted to mount a param-dependent component on all routes matching /base/(one hundred different URLs)/:myParam, under V6 I'd have to write them all out explicitly, or write the param matching code manually (or just reinstall path-to-regexp and call it with the old regex path).

@tpict Creating a folder structure with unlimited nesting and unique namespaces is a very common thing. Why is it a poor URL design?

[tpict]

@GlebAmbrazhevich I meant in the case that :myParam represents the same resource under all URLs, and the remaining segments were subcategories of that resource. Normally I'd order URL segments from least to most specificity because it's easier to compose URL configurations/views/routers/etc that way... and because that's the way everyone does it! Though I'm not sure this practice is codified anywhere as "URL usability guidelines".

For a folder structure of unknown depth, I imagine the new React Router API works very well since nested relative routes are the crux of the thing.

[jeffersoneagley]

@GlebAmbrazhevich I meant in the case that :myParam represents the same resource under all URLs, and the remaining segments were subcategories of that resource. Normally I'd order URL segments from least to most specificity because it's easier to compose URL configurations/views/routers/etc that way... and because that's the way everyone does it! Though I'm not sure this practice is codified anywhere as "URL usability guidelines".

For a folder structure of unknown depth, I imagine the new React Router API works very well since nested relative routes are the crux of the thing.

I have a similar case where "anything ending in /auth should be shown the auth page"

[VeXell]

+1 This is a good feature. Not with React Router 6.6.1 we have optional params, but i still can not use logic like that:

 const langs = `/:locale(${languages.join('|')})?`;

This is a small validation what language we can use. Instead of this simple logic we should create list of routes with all supported languages.

[brophdawg11]

@VeXell If you need to do param validation, I would do that in a loader where you can then return a 404 or redirect to a known good language URL.

[brophdawg11]

I'm going to convert this to a discussion so it can go through our new Open Development process. Please upvote the new Proposal if you'd like to see this considered!