Can't bind to 'routerLink' since it isn't a known property

Recently, I have started playing with angular 2. It's awesome so far. So, i have started a demo personal project for the sake of learning using angular-cli.

With the basic routing setup, I now want to navigate to some routes from header, but since my header is a parent to the router-outlet, I receive this error.

app.component.html

<app-header></app-header> // Trying to navigate from this component
    <router-outlet></router-outlet>
<app-footer></app-footer>

header.component.html

<a [routerLink]="['/signin']">Sign in</a>

Now I understand partially I guess that since that component is a wrapper around router-outlet it would not be possible this way to access router. So, is there a possibility to access navigation from outside for a scenario like this?

I would be really happy to add any more information if needed. Thank you in advance.

Update

1- My package.json already has the stable @angular/router 3.3.1 version. 2- In my main app module, I have imported the routing-module. Please see below.

app.module.ts

import { BrowserModule } from '@angular/platform-browser';
import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { FormsModule } from '@angular/forms';
import { HttpModule } from '@angular/http';
import { AlertModule  } from 'ng2-bootstrap';
import { LayoutModule } from './layout/layout.module';
import { UsersModule } from './users/users.module';
import { AppRoutingModule } from  './app-routing.module';
import { AppComponent } from './app.component';
import { PageNotFoundComponent } from './shared/components/not-found.component';

@NgModule({
  declarations: [
    AppComponent,
    PageNotFoundComponent
  ],
  imports: [
    BrowserModule,
    FormsModule,
    HttpModule,
    AlertModule.forRoot(),
    LayoutModule,
    UsersModule,
    AppRoutingModule  --> This is the routing module. 
  ],
  providers: [],
  bootstrap: [AppComponent]
})
export class AppModule { }

app-routing.module.ts

import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { Routes, RouterModule } from '@angular/router';
import { SigninComponent } from './users/signin/signin.component';
import { PageNotFoundComponent } from './shared/components/not-found.component';

const routes: Routes = [
{ path: '**', component: PageNotFoundComponent }
];

@NgModule({
    imports: [RouterModule.forRoot(routes)],
    exports: [RouterModule]
})

export class AppRoutingModule {}

The route I am trying to access is delegated from another module that is the UsersModule

user-routing.module.ts

import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { RouterModule, Routes } from '@angular/router';
import { SigninComponent } from './signin/signin.component';

const usersRoutes: Routes = [
  { path: 'signin',  component: SigninComponent }
];
@NgModule({
  imports: [
    RouterModule.forChild(usersRoutes)
  ],
  exports: [
    RouterModule
  ]
})

export class UsersRoutingModule { }

While I am trying to navigate from a component that is part of the Layout module, but has no notion of the router module. Is that what is causing the error.

Layout.module.ts

import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { HeaderComponent } from './header/header.component';
import { FooterComponent } from './footer/footer.component';

@NgModule({
  declarations: [HeaderComponent, FooterComponent],
  exports: [HeaderComponent, FooterComponent]
})
export class LayoutModule{}

I am trying to navigate from the HeaderComponent. I would be happy to provide more information if needed.

You need to add RouterModule to imports of every @NgModule() where components use any component or directive from (in this case routerLink and <router-outlet>.

import {RouterModule} from '@angular/router';
@NgModule({
   declarations:[YourComponents],
   imports:[RouterModule]

declarations: [] is to make components, directives, pipes, known inside the current module.

exports: [] is to make components, directives, pipes, available to importing modules. What is added to declarations only is private to the module. exports makes them public.

See also https://angular.io/api/router/RouterModule#usage-notes

You are missing either the inclusion of the route package, or including the router module in your main app module.

Make sure your package.json has this:

"@angular/router": "^3.3.1"

Then in your app.module import the router and configure the routes:

import { RouterModule } from '@angular/router';

imports: [
        RouterModule.forRoot([
            {path: '', component: DashboardComponent},
            {path: 'dashboard', component: DashboardComponent}
        ])
    ],

Update:

Move the AppRoutingModule to be first in the imports:

imports: [
    AppRoutingModule.
    BrowserModule,
    FormsModule,
    HttpModule,
    AlertModule.forRoot(), // What is this?
    LayoutModule,
    UsersModule
  ],

I'll add another case where I was getting the same error but just being a dummy. I had added [routerLinkActiveOptions]="{exact: true}" without yet adding routerLinkActive="active".

My incorrect code was

<a class="nav-link active" routerLink="/dashboard" [routerLinkActiveOptions]="{exact: true}">
  Home
</a>

when it should have been

<a class="nav-link active" routerLink="/dashboard" routerLinkActive="active" [routerLinkActiveOptions]="{exact: true}">
  Home
</a>

Without having routerLinkActive, you can't have routerLinkActiveOptions.

When nothing else works when it should work, restart ng serve. It's sad to find this kind of bugs.

I was getting this error, even though I have exported RouterModule from app-routing.module and imported app-routingModule in Root module(app module).

Then I identified, I've imported component in Routing Module only.

Declaring the component in my Root module(App Module) solves the problem.

declarations: [
AppComponent,
NavBarComponent,
HomeComponent,
LoginComponent],

You need to import RouterModule in your main module.ts file

import {RouterModule} from '@angular/router';


@NgModule({
  imports: [RouterModule],
 )}

You need to add RouterMoudle into imports sections of the module containing the Header component

This problem is because you did not import the module

import {RouterModule} from '@angular/router';

And you must declare this modulce in the import section

   imports:[RouterModule]

I am running tests for my Angular app and encountered error Can't bind to 'routerLink' since it isn't a known property of 'a' as well.

I thought it might be useful to show my Angular dependencies:

    "@angular/animations": "^8.2.14",
    "@angular/common": "^8.2.14",
    "@angular/compiler": "^8.2.14",
    "@angular/core": "^8.2.14",
    "@angular/forms": "^8.2.14",
    "@angular/router": "^8.2.14",

The issue was in my spec file. I compared to another similar component spec file and found that I was missing RouterTestingModule in imports, e.g.

    TestBed.configureTestingModule({
      declarations: [
        ...
      ],
      imports: [ReactiveFormsModule, HttpClientTestingModule, RouterTestingModule],
      providers: [...]
    });
  });

In my case I just need to import my newly created component to RouterModule

{path: 'newPath', component: newComponent}

Then in your app.module import the router and configure the routes:

import { RouterModule } from '@angular/router';

imports: [
        RouterModule.forRoot([
            {path: '', component: DashboardComponent},
            {path: 'dashboard', component: DashboardComponent},
            {path: 'newPath', component: newComponent}
        ])
    ],

Hope this helps to some one !!!

I totally chose another way for this method.

app.component.ts

import { Router } from '@angular/router';
export class AppComponent {

   constructor(
        private router: Router,
    ) {}

    routerComment() {
        this.router.navigateByUrl('/marketing/social/comment');
    }
}

app.component.html

<button (click)="routerComment()">Router Link </button>

In the current component's module import RouterModule.

Like:-

import {RouterModule} from '@angular/router';
@NgModule({
   declarations:[YourComponents],
   imports:[RouterModule]

...

It helped me.

I just lost about 2 hours on this. It was a bug of my Visual Studio. I had to reinstall Angular and update my NPM again and now it works again.