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React Router v1, v2 and v3

Since version 1.0.0 you define optional parameters with:

<Route path="to/page(/:pathParam)" component={MyPage} />

and for multiple optional parameters:

<Route path="to/page(/:pathParam1)(/:pathParam2)" component={MyPage} />

You use parenthesis ( ) to wrap the optional parts of route, including the leading slash (/). Check out the Route Matching Guide page of the official documentation.

Note: The :paramName parameter matches a URL segment up to the next /, ?, or #. For more about paths and params specifically, read more here.

React Router v4 and above

React Router v4 is fundamentally different than v1-v3, and optional path parameters aren't explicitly defined in the official documentation either.

Instead, you are instructed to define a path parameter that path-to-regexp understands. This allows for much greater flexibility in defining your paths, such as repeating patterns, wildcards, etc. So to define a parameter as optional you add a trailing question-mark (?).

As such, to define an optional parameter, you do:

<Route path="/to/page/:pathParam?" component={MyPage} />

and for multiple optional parameters:

<Route path="/to/page/:pathParam1?/:pathParam2?" component={MyPage} />

Note: React Router v4 is incompatible with react-router-relay (read more here). Use version v3 or earlier (v2 recommended) instead.

For any React Router v4 users arriving here following a search, optional parameters in a <Route> are denoted with a ? suffix.

Here's the relevant documentation:

https://reacttraining.com/react-router/web/api/Route/path-string

path: string

Any valid URL path that path-to-regexp understands.

    <Route path="/users/:id" component={User}/>

https://www.npmjs.com/package/path-to-regexp#optional

Optional

Parameters can be suffixed with a question mark (?) to make the parameter optional. This will also make the prefix optional.

Simple example of a paginated section of a site that can be accessed with or without a page number.

    <Route path="/section/:page?" component={Section} />

Working syntax for multiple optional params:

<Route path="/section/(page)?/:page?/(sort)?/:sort?" component={Section} />

Now, url can be:

1. /section
2. /section/page/1
3. /section/page/1/sort/asc