Rendering Links

Links in single page applications are unique for the fact that they do not trigger a page load. Typically all a link would require is an href property:

<a href="/foo/bar">Foo Bar</a>

This works as expected but causes the entire page to reload whenever the link is clicked. If we're building a single page application we'd like to avoid that. To do so we need to capture link clicks and prevent the default behavior.

<a
  href="/foo/bar"
  onClick={event => {
    event.preventDefault();
    // Then trigger some state update so we know we're at "/foo/bar"
  }}
>
  Foo Bar
</a>

Using Type Route the above would look something like this:

<a
  href={routes.fooBar.href()}
  onClick={event => {
    event.preventDefault();
    routes.fooBar.push();
  }}
>
  Foo Bar
</a>

This pattern becomes especially repetitive when the route has parameters. To solve this problem in a framework agnostic way Type Route has the link function.

<a {...routes.fooBar.link()}>Foo Bar</a>

The link function returns an object with href and onClick properties. Then you can simply destructure these into the props of the <a> tag and you achieve the same functionality as above in a less verbose way. Its important to provide both the href and onClick properties to the link. onClick will ensure we don't trigger a page reload when clicking the link and href will ensure the browser still treats the link as a link.