rlite

Tiny, fast, light-weight JavaScript routing with zero dependencies.

Order of route declaration doesn't matter: the most specific route wins
Zero dependencies
No performance drop as you add routes
Less than 700 bytes minified and gzipped
Parses query strings
Wildcard support

Usage

Rlite does not come with any explicit tie into HTML5 push state or hash-change events, but these are easy enough to tie in based on your needs. Here's an example:

const route = rlite(notFound, {
  // Default route
  '': function () {
    return 'Home';
  },

  // #inbox
  'inbox': function () {
    return 'Inbox';
  },

  // #sent?to=john -> r.params.to will equal 'john'
  'sent': function ({to}) {
    return 'Sent to ' + to;
  },

  // #users/chris -> r.params.name will equal 'chris'
  'users/:name': function ({name}) {
    return 'User ' + name;
  },

  // #users/foo/bar/baz -> r.params.path will equal 'foo/bar/baz'
  'users/*path': function ({path}) {
    return 'Path = ' + path;
  },

  // #logout
  'logout': function () {
    return 'Logout';
  }
});

function notFound() {
  return '<h1>404 Not found :/</h1>';
}

// Hash-based routing
function processHash() {
  const hash = location.hash || '#';

  // Do something useful with the result of the route
  document.body.textContent = route(hash.slice(1));
}

window.addEventListener('hashchange', processHash);
processHash();

The previous examples should be relatively self-explantatory. Simple, parameterized routes are supported. Only relative URLs are supported. (So, instead of passing: 'http://example.com/users/1', pass '/users/1').

Routes are not case sensitive, so 'Users/:name' will resolve to 'users/:name'

Possible surprises

If there is a query parameter with the same name as a route parameter, it will override the route parameter. So given the following route definition:

/users/:name

If you pass the following URL:

/users/chris?name=joe

The value of params.name will be 'joe', not 'chris'.

Keywords/patterns need to immediately follow a slash. So, routes like the following will not be matched:

/users/user-:id

In this case, you'll need to either use a wildcard route /users/*prefixedId or else, you'd want to modify the URL to be in a format like this: /users/user/:id.

Route handlers

Route handlers ara functions that take three arguments and return a result and/or produce a side-effect.

Here's an example handler:

const route = rlite(notFound, {
  'users/:id': function (params, state, url) {
    // Do interesting stuff here...
  }
});

The first argument is params. It is an object representing the route parameters. So, if you were to run route('users/33'), params would be {id: '33'}.

The second argument is state. It is an optional value that was passed into the route function. So, if you were to run route('users/22', 'Hello'), params would be {id: '22'} and state would be 'Hello'.

The third argument is url. It is the URL which was matched to the route. So, if you were to run route('users/25'), params would be {id: '25'}, state would be undefined and url would be 'users/25'.

Modules

If you're using ES6, import rlite like so:

import rlite from 'rlite-router';

const routes = rlite(notFound, {
  '': function () { }
});

// etc

Or using CommonJS like so:

var Rlite = require('rlite-router');
var routes = rlite(notFound, {
  '': function () { }
});

// etc

Handling 404s

The first parameter to rlite is the 404 handler. This function will be invoked when rlite is called with a URL that has no matching routes.

In the following example, the body will end up with <h1>404 NOT FOUND</h1>.

const route = rlite(() => '<h1>404 NOT FOUND</h1>', {
  'hello': => '<h1>WORLD</h1>'
});

document.body.innerHTML = route('/not/a/valid/url');

Changes from 1.x

The parameters to route handlers have changed
The plugins have been dropped since 2.x is more functional in nature, it's easy to extend
rlite returns a function, rather than an object
You can pass optional state into your route handlers
The result of your route handler is returned by the router

Installation

Just download rlite.min.js, or use bower:

bower install rlite

Or use npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/rlite-router

npm install --save rlite-router

Contributing

Make your changes (and add tests), then run the tests:

npm test

If all is well, build your changes:

npm run min

This minifies rlite, and tells you the size. It's currently just under 700 bytes, and I'd like to keep it that way!

Status

Rlite is being actively maintained, but is pretty much feature complete. Generally, I avoid repos that look stale (no recent activity), but in this case, the reason for inactivity is that library is stable and complete.

Usage with React

I've been using Rlite along with React and Redux. Here's a write up on how that works.

License MIT

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

chrisdavies/rlite