useQueryState for Next.js

useQueryState hook for Next.js - Like React.useState, but stored in the URL query string

Features

• 🧘‍♀️ Simple: the URL is the source of truth
• 🕰 Replace history or append to use the Back button to navigate state updates
• ⚡️ Built-in parsers for common object types (number, float, boolean, Date, and more)
• ♊️ Linked querystrings with useQueryStates
• 🔀 (beta) Supports both the app router (in client components only) and pages router

Installation

$ pnpm add next-usequerystate
$ yarn add next-usequerystate
$ npm install next-usequerystate

Usage

'use client' // app router: only works in client components

import { useQueryState } from 'next-usequerystate'

export default () => {
  const [name, setName] = useQueryState('name')
  return (
    <>
      <h1>Hello, {name || 'anonymous visitor'}!</h1>
      <input value={name || ''} onChange={e => setName(e.target.value)} />
      <button onClick={() => setName(null)}>Clear</button>
    </>
  )
}

Documentation

useQueryState takes one required argument: the key to use in the query string.

Like React.useState, it returns an array with the value present in the query string as a string (or null if none was found), and a state updater function.

Example outputs for our hello world example:

Parsing

If your state type is not a string, you must pass a parsing function in the second argument object.

We provide parsers for common and more advanced object types:

import {
  parseAsString,
  parseAsInteger,
  parseAsFloat,
  parseAsBoolean,
  parseAsTimestamp,
  parseAsIsoDateTime,
  parseAsArrayOf,
  parseAsJson,
  parseAsStringEnum
} from 'next-usequerystate'

useQueryState('tag') // defaults to string
useQueryState('count', parseAsInteger)
useQueryState('brightness', parseAsFloat)
useQueryState('darkMode', parseAsBoolean)
useQueryState('after', parseAsTimestamp) // state is a Date
useQueryState('date', parseAsIsoDateTime) // state is a Date
useQueryState('array', parseAsArrayOf(parseAsInteger)) // state is number[]
useQueryState('json', parseAsJson<Point>()) // state is a Point

// Enums (string-based only)
enum Direction {
  up = 'UP',
  down = 'DOWN',
  left = 'LEFT',
  right = 'RIGHT'
}

const [direction, setDirection] = useQueryState(
  'direction',
  parseAsStringEnum<Direction>(Object.values(Direction)) // pass a list of allowed values
    .withDefault(Direction.up)
)

You may pass a custom set of parse and serialize functions:

import { useQueryState } from 'next-usequerystate'

export default () => {
  const [hex, setHex] = useQueryState('hex', {
    // TypeScript will automatically infer it's a number
    // based on what `parse` returns.
    parse: (query: string) => parseInt(query, 16),
    serialize: value => value.toString(16)
  })
}

Example: simple counter stored in the URL:

import { useQueryState, parseAsInteger } from 'next-usequerystate'

export default () => {
  const [count, setCount] = useQueryState('count', parseAsInteger)
  return (
    <>
      <pre>count: {count}</pre>
      <button onClick={() => setCount(0)}>Reset</button>
      <button onClick={() => setCount(c => c ?? 0 + 1)}>+</button>
      <button onClick={() => setCount(c => c ?? 0 - 1)}>-</button>
      <button onClick={() => setCount(null)}>Clear</button>
    </>
  )
}

Default value

When the query string is not present in the URL, the default behaviour is to return null as state.

As you saw in the previous example, it makes state updating and UI rendering tedious.

You can specify a default value to be returned in this case:

const [count, setCount] = useQueryState('count', parseAsInteger.withDefault(0))

const increment = () => setCount(c => c + 1) // c will never be null
const decrement = () => setCount(c => c - 1) // c will never be null
const clearCount = () => setCount(null) // Remove query from the URL

Note: the default value is internal to React, it will not be written to the URL.

Setting the state to null will remove the key in the query string and set the state to the default value.

Options

History

By default, state updates are done by replacing the current history entry with the updated query when state changes.

You can see this as a sort of git squash, where all state-changing operations are merged into a single history value.

You can also opt-in to push a new history item for each state change, per key, which will let you use the Back button to navigate state updates:

// Default: replace current history with new state
useQueryState('foo', { history: 'replace' })

// Append state changes to history:
useQueryState('foo', { history: 'push' })

Any other value for the history option will fallback to the default.

You can also override the history mode when calling the state updater function:

const [query, setQuery] = useQueryState('q', { history: 'push' })

// This overrides the hook declaration setting:
setQuery(null, { history: 'replace' })

Shallow

By default, query state updates are done in a client-first manner: there are no network calls to the server.

This uses the shallow option of the Next.js router set to true.

To opt-in to query updates notifying the server (to re-run getServerSideProps in the pages router and re-render Server Components on the pages router), you can set shallow to false:

const [state, setState] = useQueryState('foo', { shallow: false })

// You can also pass the option on calls to setState:
setState('bar', { shallow: false })

Scroll

The Next.js router scrolls to the top of the page on navigation updates, which may not be desirable when updating the query string with local state.

Query state updates won't scroll to the top of the page by default, but you can opt-in to this behaviour (which was the default up to 1.8.0):

const [state, setState] = useQueryState('foo', { scroll: true })

// You can also pass the option on calls to setState:
setState('bar', { scroll: true })

Composing parsers, default value & options

You can use a builder pattern to facilitate specifying all of those things:

useQueryState(
  'counter',
  parseAsInteger
    .withOptions({
      history: 'push',
      shallow: false
    })
    .withDefault(0)
)

Note: withDefault must always come after withOptions to ensure proper type safety (providing a non-nullable state type).

Multiple Queries (batching)

You can call as many state update function as needed in a single event loop tick, and they will be applied to the URL asynchronously:

const MultipleQueriesDemo = () => {
  const [lat, setLat] = useQueryState('lat', parseAsFloat)
  const [lng, setLng] = useQueryState('lng', parseAsFloat)
  const randomCoordinates = React.useCallback(() => {
    setLat(Math.random() * 180 - 90)
    setLng(Math.random() * 360 - 180)
  }, [])
}

For query keys that should always move together, you can use useQueryStates with an object containing each key's type, for a better DX:

import { useQueryStates, parseAsFloat } from 'next-usequerystate'

const [coordinates, setCoordinates] = useQueryStates(
  {
    lat: parseAsFloat.withDefault(45.18),
    lng: parseAsFloat.withDefault(5.72)
  },
  {
    history: 'push'
  }
)

const { lat, lng } = coordinates

// Set all (or a subset of) the keys in one go:
const search = await setCoordinates({
  lat: Math.random() * 180 - 90,
  lng: Math.random() * 360 - 180
})

Caveats

Because the Next.js pages router is not available in an SSR context, this hook will always return null (or the default value if supplied) on SSR/SSG.

This limitation doesn't apply to the app router.

Lossy serialization

If your serializer loses precision or doesn't accurately represent the underlying state value, you will lose this precision when reloading the page or restoring state from the URL (eg: on navigation).

Example:

const geoCoordParser = {
  parse: parseFloat,
  serialize: v => v.toFixed(4) // Loses precision
}

const [lat, setLat] = useQueryState('lat', geoCoordParser)

Here, setting a latitude of 1.23456789 will render a URL query string of lat=1.2345, while the internal lat state will be correctly set to 1.23456789.

Upon reloading the page, the state will be incorrectly set to 1.2345.

License

MIT

• Made with ❤️ by François Best

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