Setting up Redux Toolkit and React Router

picture cred: https://unsplash.com/@jakobowens1

About me: https://kenchambers.dev/

Feel free to hassle me in the comments if I have any unnecessary code. This post mainly serves as documentation for myself anyways.

create a new redux tool kit app with `create-react-app`

npx create-react-app my-app --template redux

update RTK boilerplate code

remove all the unessary stuff from App.js

import React from 'react';
import './App.css';

function App() {
  return (
    <div className="App">

    </div>
  );
}

export default App;

now we need to update store.js with the connected-react-router setup. I happen to be using redux thunk in this example but you can use sagas, or whatever you want.

src/app/store.js:

add this to the top of our file: (make sure you have all your dependencies:

yarn add connected-react-router redux-thunk history react-router

import { combineReducers } from '@reduxjs/toolkit';
import { createBrowserHistory } from 'history'
import { connectRouter, routerMiddleware } from 'connected-react-router'
import { applyMiddleware, compose, createStore } from 'redux'
import thunk from "redux-thunk"
import counterReducer from '../features/counter/counterSlice';

I'm going to use the RTK boiler plate reducer so that we can use it as an example of where to put your reducers.

Note: this can be separated into another root-reducer.js file if you like, I just have it all in store.js to make this example quick.

declare and export a const for browser history, and then create a root reducer and add a key for the router.

make sure the key name stays router otherwise it wont work.


export const history = createBrowserHistory()

const createRootReducer = (history) => combineReducers({
  router: connectRouter(history),
  counter: counterReducer
})

lastly lets declare and export the store:

export const store = function configureStore(preloadedState) {
  const store = createStore(
    createRootReducer(history),
    preloadedState, compose(applyMiddleware(routerMiddleware(history), thunk)),
  )
  return store
}

notice how I am also adding thunk to the applyMiddleware function.

all together now: (store.js)


import { combineReducers } from '@reduxjs/toolkit';
import { createBrowserHistory } from 'history'
import { connectRouter, routerMiddleware } from 'connected-react-router'
import blockNodesReducer from '../features/blockNodes/blockNodesSlice';
import { applyMiddleware, compose, createStore } from 'redux'
import thunk from "redux-thunk"

export const history = createBrowserHistory()

const createRootReducer = (history) => combineReducers({
  router: connectRouter(history),
  blockNodes: blockNodesReducer
})

export const store = function configureStore(preloadedState) {
  const store = createStore(
    createRootReducer(history),
    preloadedState, compose(applyMiddleware(routerMiddleware(history), thunk)),
  )
  return store
}

Setup Routing:

navigate over to index.js and import the constants we will need to set up routing:

src/index.js

import { store, history } from './app/store';
import { ConnectedRouter } from 'connected-react-router'
import { Route, Switch } from 'react-router'

now remove what they have in ReactDOM.render and replace it with this :

ReactDOM.render(
  <React.StrictMode>
    <Provider store={store()}>
      <ConnectedRouter history={history}>
        <>
          <Switch>
            <Route exact path="/" render={() => (<App />)} />
            <Route exact path="/test" render={() => (<><h1>test</h1></>)} />
            <Route render={() => (<div>Miss</div>)} />
          </Switch>
        </>
      </ConnectedRouter>
    </Provider>
  </React.StrictMode>,
  document.getElementById('root')
);

notice inside of <Provider> I am calling store() instead of what they had before , where they just imported store without calling it.

Also make sure to import the history object from the file we created earlier: src/app/store.js

Also if you need to use a Context you can pass it directly into <ConnectedRouter> like this:

<ConnectedRouter history={history}>

all together now:

src/index.js

import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import './index.css';
import App from './App';
import { store, history } from './app/store';
import { Provider } from 'react-redux';
import * as serviceWorker from './serviceWorker';
import { ConnectedRouter } from 'connected-react-router'
import { Route, Switch } from 'react-router' // react-router v4/v5

ReactDOM.render(
  <React.StrictMode>
    <Provider store={store()}>
      <ConnectedRouter history={history}>
        <>
          <Switch>
            <Route exact path="/" render={() => (<App />)} />
            <Route exact path="/test" render={() => (<><h1>test</h1></>)} />
            <Route render={() => (<div>Miss</div>)} />
          </Switch>
        </>
      </ConnectedRouter>
    </Provider>
  </React.StrictMode>,
  document.getElementById('root')
);

// If you want your app to work offline and load faster, you can change
// unregister() to register() below. Note this comes with some pitfalls.
// Learn more about service workers: https://bit.ly/CRA-PWA
serviceWorker.unregister();

WE DID IT

navigate to localhost:3000/test to see our routing in action.

I am not going into detail about how to call the routes , since your setup will be probably different than mine.

Info on setting up linking and routing to pages:
https://github.com/supasate/connected-react-router/blob/master/FAQ.md#how-to-navigate-with-redux-action

The code for this repo can be found here:

I couldn't find any articles that clearly or simply explained this process , so i decided to publish this, feel free to flame me in the comments or offer suggestions on expanding this!

thanks so much.