React Router Breadcrumbs HOC

A small (~1.3kb compressed & gzipped), flexible, higher order component for rendering breadcrumbs with react-router 5

---

example.com/user/123 → Home / User / John Doe

---

Want to use hooks instead? Try use-react-router-breadcrumbs.

• Description
  • Features
• Install
• Usage
• Examples
  • Simple
  • Advanced
• Route config compatibility
• Dynamic breadcrumbs
• Options
  • Disabling default generated breadcrumbs
• Order matters!
• API

Description

Render breadcrumbs for react-router however you want!

Features

• Easy to get started with automatically generated breadcrumbs.
• Render, map, and wrap breadcrumbs any way you want.
• Compatible with existing route configs.

Install

yarn add react-router-breadcrumbs-hoc

or

npm i react-router-breadcrumbs-hoc --save

Usage

1withBreadcrumbs()(MyComponent);

Examples

Simple

Start seeing generated breadcrumbs right away with this simple example (codesandbox)

1import withBreadcrumbs from 'react-router-breadcrumbs-hoc';
2
3const Breadcrumbs = ({ breadcrumbs }) => (
4  <>
5    {breadcrumbs.map(({ breadcrumb }) => breadcrumb)}
6  </>
7)
8
9export default withBreadcrumbs()(Breadcrumbs);

Advanced

The example above will work for some routes, but you may want other routes to be dynamic (such as a user name breadcrumb). Let's modify it to handle custom-set breadcrumbs. (codesandbox)

1import withBreadcrumbs from 'react-router-breadcrumbs-hoc';
2
3const userNamesById = { '1': 'John' }
4
5const DynamicUserBreadcrumb = ({ match }) => (
6  <span>{userNamesById[match.params.userId]}</span>
7);
8
9// define custom breadcrumbs for certain routes.
10// breadcumbs can be components or strings.
11const routes = [
12  { path: '/users/:userId', breadcrumb: DynamicUserBreadcrumb },
13  { path: '/example', breadcrumb: 'Custom Example' },
14];
15
16// map, render, and wrap your breadcrumb components however you want.
17const Breadcrumbs = ({ breadcrumbs }) => (
18  <div>
19    {breadcrumbs.map(({
20      match,
21      breadcrumb
22    }) => (
23      <span key={match.url}>
24        <NavLink to={match.url}>{breadcrumb}</NavLink>
25      </span>
26    ))}
27  </div>
28);
29
30export default withBreadcrumbs(routes)(Breadcrumbs);

For the above example...

Pathname	Result
/users	Home / Users
/users/1	Home / Users / John
/example	Home / Custom Example

Route config compatibility

Add breadcrumbs to your existing route config. This is a great way to keep all routing config paths in a single place! If a path ever changes, you'll only have to change it in your main route config rather than maintaining a separate config for react-router-breadcrumbs-hoc.

For example...

1const routeConfig = [
2  {
3    path: "/sandwiches",
4    component: Sandwiches
5  }
6];

becomes...

1const routeConfig = [
2  {
3    path: "/sandwiches",
4    component: Sandwiches,
5    breadcrumb: 'I love sandwiches'
6  }
7];

then you can just pass the whole route config right into the hook:

1withBreadcrumbs(routeConfig)(MyComponent);

Dynamic breadcrumbs

If you pass a component as the breadcrumb prop it will be injected with react-router's match and location objects as props. These objects contain ids, hashes, queries, etc from the route that will allow you to map back to whatever you want to display in the breadcrumb.

Let's use Redux as an example with the match object:

1// UserBreadcrumb.jsx
2const PureUserBreadcrumb = ({ firstName }) => <span>{firstName}</span>;
3
4// find the user in the store with the `id` from the route
5const mapStateToProps = (state, props) => ({
6  firstName: state.userReducer.usersById[props.match.params.id].firstName,
7});
8
9export default connect(mapStateToProps)(PureUserBreadcrumb);
10
11// routes = [{ path: '/users/:id', breadcrumb: UserBreadcrumb }]
12// example.com/users/123 --> Home / Users / John

Now we can pass this custom redux breadcrumb into the HOC:

1withBreadcrumbs([{
2  path: '/users/:id',
3  breadcrumb: UserBreadcrumb
4}]);

---

Similarly, the location object could be useful for displaying dynamic breadcrumbs based on the route's state:

1// dynamically update EditorBreadcrumb based on state info
2const EditorBreadcrumb = ({ location: { state: { isNew } } }) => (
3  <span>{isNew ? 'Add New' : 'Update'}</span>
4);
5
6// routes = [{ path: '/editor', breadcrumb: EditorBreadcrumb }]
7
8// upon navigation, breadcrumb will display: Update
9<Link to={{ pathname: '/editor' }}>Edit</Link>
10
11// upon navigation, breadcrumb will display: Add New
12<Link to={{ pathname: '/editor', state: { isNew: true } }}>Add</Link>

Options

An options object can be passed as the 2nd argument to the hook.

1withBreadcrumbs(routes, options)(Component);

Option	Type	Description
disableDefaults	Boolean	Disables all default generated breadcrumbs.
excludePaths	Array<String>	Disables default generated breadcrumbs for specific paths.

Disabling default generated breadcrumbs

This package will attempt to create breadcrumbs for you based on the route section. For example /users will automatically create the breadcrumb "Users". There are two ways to disable default breadcrumbs for a path:

Option 1: Disable all default breadcrumb generation by passing disableDefaults: true in the options object

withBreadcrumbs(routes, { disableDefaults: true })

Option 2: Disable individual default breadcrumbs by passing breadcrumb: null in route config:

{ path: '/a/b', breadcrumb: null }

Option 3: Disable individual default breadcrumbs by passing an excludePaths array in the options object

withBreadcrumbs(routes, { excludePaths: ['/', '/no-breadcrumb/for-this-route'] })

Order matters!

Consider the following route configs:

1[
2  { path: '/users/:id', breadcrumb: 'id-breadcrumb' },
3  { path: '/users/create', breadcrumb: 'create-breadcrumb' },
4]
5
6// example.com/users/create = 'id-breadcrumb' (because path: '/users/:id' will match first)
7// example.com/users/123 = 'id-breadcumb'

To fix the issue above, just adjust the order of your routes:

1[
2  { path: '/users/create', breadcrumb: 'create-breadcrumb' },
3  { path: '/users/:id', breadcrumb: 'id-breadcrumb' },
4]
5
6// example.com/users/create = 'create-breadcrumb' (because path: '/users/create' will match first)
7// example.com/users/123 = 'id-breadcrumb'

API

1Route = {
2  path: String
3  breadcrumb?: String|Component // if not provided, a default breadcrumb will be returned
4  matchOptions?: {             // see: https://reacttraining.com/react-router/web/api/matchPath
5    exact?: Boolean,
6    strict?: Boolean,
7  }
8}
9
10Options = {
11  excludePaths?: string[]       // disable default breadcrumb generation for specific paths
12  disableDefaults?: Boolean  // disable all default breadcrumb generation
13}
14
15// if routes are not passed, default breadcrumbs will be returned
16withBreadcrumbs(routes?: Route[], options?: Options): HigherOrderComponent
17
18// you shouldn't ever really have to use `getBreadcrumbs`, but it's
19// exported for convenience if you don't want to use the HOC
20getBreadcrumbs({
21  routes: Route[],
22  options: Options,
23}): Breadcrumb[]