Dynamic Route Matching with Params

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Very often we will need to map routes with the given pattern to the same component. For example we may have a User component which should be rendered for all users but with different user IDs. In Vue Router we can use a dynamic segment in the path to achieve that, we call that a param:

const User = {
  template: '<div>User</div>',
}
// these are passed to `createRouter`
const routes = [
  // dynamic segments start with a colon
  { path: '/users/:id', component: User },
]

Now URLs like /users/johnny and /users/jolyne will both map to the same route.

A param is denoted by a colon :. When a route is matched, the value of its params will be exposed as this.$route.params in every component. Therefore, we can render the current user ID by updating User‘s template to this:

const User = {
  template: '<div>User {{ $route.params.id }}</div>',
}

You can have multiple params in the same route, and they will map to corresponding fields on $route.params. Examples:

In addition to $route.params, the $route object also exposes other useful information such as $route.query (if there is a query in the URL), $route.hash, etc. You can check out the full details in the API Reference.

A working demo of this example can be found here.

Reacting to Params Changes

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One thing to note when using routes with params is that when the user navigates from /users/johnny to /users/jolyne, the same component instance will be reused. Since both routes render the same component, this is more efficient than destroying the old instance and then creating a new one. However, this also means that the lifecycle hooks of the component will not be called.

To react to params changes in the same component, you can simply watch anything on the $route object, in this scenario, the $route.params:

const User = {
  template: '...',
  created() {
    this.$watch(
      () => this.$route.params,
      (toParams, previousParams) => {
        // react to route changes...
      }
    )
  },
}

Or, use the beforeRouteUpdate navigation guard, which also allows to cancel the navigation:

const User = {
  template: '...',
  async beforeRouteUpdate(to, from) {
    // react to route changes...
    this.userData = await fetchUser(to.params.id)
  },
}

Catch all / 404 Not found Route

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Regular params will only match characters in between url fragments, separated by /. If we want to match anything, we can use a custom param regexp by adding the regexp inside parentheses right after the param:

const routes = [
  // will match everything and put it under `$route.params.pathMatch`
  { path: '/:pathMatch(.*)*', name: 'NotFound', component: NotFound },
  // will match anything starting with `/user-` and put it under `$route.params.afterUser`
  { path: '/user-:afterUser(.*)', component: UserGeneric },
]

In this specific scenario we are using a custom regexp between parentheses and marking the pathMatch param as optionally repeatable. This allows us to directly navigate to the route if we need to by splitting the path into an array:

this.$router.push({
  name: 'NotFound',
  // preserve current path and remove the first char to avoid the target URL starting with `//`
  params: { pathMatch: this.$route.path.substring(1).split('/') },
  // preserve existing query and hash if any
  query: this.$route.query,
  hash: this.$route.hash,
})

See more in the repeated params section.

If you are using History mode, make sure to follow the instructions to correctly configure your server as well.

Advanced Matching Patterns

Vue Router uses its own path matching syntax, inspired by the one used by express, so it supports many advanced matching patterns such as optional params, zero or more / one or more requirements, and even custom regex patterns. Please check the Advanced Matching documentation to explore them.