[v6] feature request: allow searchParams to be passed to useNavigate's options to navigate to a URL with a query string

[caseyjhol]

I'd like to be able to do something like:

const navigate = useNavigate();

// this would navigate to listing?foo=bar
navigate("listing", {
    searchParams: {
        foo: "bar"
    }
});

See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65800658/react-router-v6-navigate-to-a-url-with-searchparams for more information.

[kamthamc]

I believe you can provide search params today

navigate({
  pathname: 'listing',
  search: '?foo=bar'
});

You can create search Pram using URLSearchParams https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/URLSearchParams/URLSearchParams#examples

https://github.com/ReactTraining/react-router/blob/6e13acf6b9c0101bcffb67a236f29226c18c2a6b/packages/react-router/index.tsx#L421

https://github.com/ReactTraining/history/blob/28c89f4091ae9e1b0001341ea60c629674e83627/packages/history/index.ts#L211

https://github.com/ReactTraining/history/blob/28c89f4091ae9e1b0001341ea60c629674e83627/packages/history/index.ts#L121-L142

[caseyjhol]

That's close, but it still requires prepending ? and manually converting the object to a string via createSearchParams(params).toString().

navigate({
    pathname: "listing",
    search: `?${createSearchParams({
        foo: "bar"
    }).toString()}`
})

It looks like history wants to just keep the string: remix-run/history#478. Regarding the ? prefix, remix-run/history#813 and #7496 are related.

I think it'd be trivial for react-router to check if an object was passed through and convert it to a query string automatically, but I guess it's fairly trivial to do it manually too.

[epidemian]

@caseyjhol, the toString() call there is unnecessary since that's done automatically when concatenating strings, so a trimmed version of that code could be:

navigate({
    pathname: "listing",
    search: '?' + createSearchParams({ foo: "bar" })
})

Which i think is not that bad 🙂

I would also like to have a simple way to pass search params as an object. The immediate problem i see with adding this to navigate is that if they are passed alongside a search value, then navigate should reconcile these two and take care of collisions:

// should this navigate to /listing?foo=bar,  /listing?baz=qux, or /listing?foo=bar&baz=qux ?
navigate({
  pathname: 'listing',
  search: '?foo=bar',
  searchParams: { baz: 'qux' }
});

// should this navigate to /listing?foo=bar or to /listing?foo=42, or even /listing?foo=bar&foo=42 ?
navigate({
  pathname: 'listing',
  search: '?foo=bar',
  searchParams: { foo: 42 }
});

None of those questions is obvious to me. I think react-router made a good decision of staying away from query-string parsing in general (except in providing a hook for a URLSearchParams object, which is a browser builtin).

BTW, i think your solution of implementing a custom useNavigateParams() hook is perfectly reasonable for this use case.

[caseyjhol]

Oh good catch. That definitely cleans it up a bit. I don't think we need a separate searchParams option (now that I know about search). From a DX perspective, I think being able to set search to a string or an object would be the best (and it could call createSearchParams internally). I'd even be fine with just accepting a string (and using createSearchParams anyway). There's something about having to manually prefix the ? that seems a little wonky.

[BenJenkinson]

I think being able to set search to an object of parameters is a great feature to add.

// navigate to /listing?foo=bar
navigate({
  pathname: "listing",
  search: "?foo=bar",
});

// also navigate to /listing?foo=bar
navigate({
  pathname: "listing",
  search: {
    foo: "bar",
  },
});

This would be really useful when merging the parameters for the "new" page with any existing parameters.

const currentSearch = useSearch();

const currentPage = currentSearch.page ?? 1;

navigate({
  pathname: "listing",
  search: {
    ...currentSearch,
    page: currentPage + 1
  },
});

It could also handle arrays of parameters, for example:

// navigate to /listing?fruit=apple&fruit=banana
navigate({
  pathname: "listing",
  search: {
    fruit: ["apple", "banana"],
  },
});

[epidemian]

From a DX perspective, I think being able to set search to a string or an object would be the best

Oh, i hadn't thought about that; you are completely right! It would be super convenient in some cases (e.g., dynamic values), and also wouldn't introduce any ambiguity problem like the ones i described 👍

[chaance]

Just a note that you no longer need to prepend ? to the search param. Something like this should totally work.

navigate({
  pathname: "listing",
  search: "foo=bar",
});

Overloads add complexity which add code, and we're always doing what we can to weigh DX against keeping the library as lean as possible. I definitely see the utility here, but I believe it should probably be handled in user code. My suggestion would be creating your own useNavigate hook with the API you prefer:

import { useNavigate as useNavigate_ } from "react-router-dom";
import { parsePath } from "history";

export function useNavigate() {
  let navigate = useNavigate_();
  return React.useCallback((to, { searchParams, ...options } = {}) => {
    let search = typeof searchParams === "object"
      ? new URLSearchParams(searchParams).toString()
      : undefined;
    to = typeof to === "string" ? parsePath(to) : to;
    return navigate({ search, ...to }, options);
  }, [navigate]);
}

[Lure5134]

I don't think, that it hurts anyone if the library is a bit bigger. If they don't Import this method, then there package size won't increase.

[Lure5134]

And especially when it comes to methods that every 2nd needed anyway.