Fixing react-router-bootstrap LinkContainer Navigation Issues in Your React App

Discover how to resolve the navigation issue with `react-router-bootstrap` when implementing pagination in your React app. Learn about the proper use of hooks and how to improve your routing experience.
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This video is based on the question stackoverflow.com/q/71560682/ asked by the user 'user2851984' ( stackoverflow.com/u/2851984/ ) and on the answer stackoverflow.com/a/71560759/ provided by the user 'Drew Reese' ( stackoverflow.com/u/8690857/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

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Dealing with LinkContainer Navigation Issues in React

If you are working with React and using react-router along with react-router-bootstrap for routing, you might have stumbled upon an issue where clicking LinkContainer to navigate between pages does not trigger a refresh of the component even when the URL changes. This can be particularly frustrating when implementing pagination and can hinder user experience.

In this guide, we will dive deep into understanding this issue, and provide a clear and concise solution to ensure your pagination works seamlessly with LinkContainer.

Understanding the Problem

You might have a component, say CompanyDirScreen, that is responsible for displaying a list of companies along with pagination controls. You have built this with react-bootstrap and react-router but notice that while the URL updates in the address bar when you click on pagination links, the content of the page doesn’t refresh. You encounter a scenario like this:

Clicking on pagination link updates the URL.

No changes in the rendered content.

Hitting enter on the address bar after updating the URL refreshes the content.

Initial Setup

In your CompanyDirScreen.jsx, you might handle component mounting and fetching data using the useEffect hook, but it might look something like this:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

This code runs only once when the component is mounted due to an empty dependency array, which means that any subsequent changes to the search parameters do not trigger a re-fetch.

Proposed Solution

To resolve this issue, you simply need to update the dependency array of the useEffect hook to include the changed parameters, particularly the keywords that represent your search query.

Update Your useEffect

Here's how you should modify your useEffect hook in CompanyDirScreen.jsx:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Step-by-step Breakdown

Destructure the Search Parameter: Use useLocation() to get the current search string. This will allow you to know what the current page parameter is.

Update the Dependency Array: By including keywords in the dependency array, the useEffect will now run every time the keywords variable changes. This means whenever the user clicks on any of your pagination links, the URL will change and the effect will re-trigger.

Fetching Data on Update: The getCompanies function will then fetch the data associated with the current page, making sure that your component state gets updated accordingly.

Testing the Solution

After making the changes, try clicking on your pagination links again. The URL in the browser should update as before, but now the content should also change to reflect the new page data. Ensure there are no errors in the console, and if everything is working correctly, you've successfully fixed the navigation refresh issue!

Conclusion

Integrating pagination in a React application using react-router-bootstrap can seem tricky at first, especially when routing doesn't work as expected. However, by ensuring your useEffect watches for the right variables, you can create a smooth user experience.

Feel free to reuse this pagination component in other parts of your app as planned, and as always, happy coding!