How to set activeClassName for wrapper element of Link or IndexLink in react-router?

I am new to the ReactJS world, and would like to know how can I pass active class name to the <li> element instead of <a>(Link) element.

Now I have this kind of code. The anchor class changes when clicked.

<li><IndexLink to='/' activeclassName='active'>A</IndexLink></li>
<li><Link to='/b' activeclassName='active'>B</Link></li>
<li><Link to='/c' activeclassName='active'>C</Link></li>

But I would like to get something similar to:

<li activeclassName='active'><IndexLink to='/'>A</IndexLink></li>
<li activeclassName='active'><Link to='/b'>B</Link></li>
<li activeclassName='active'><Link to='/c'>C</Link></li>

Thanks in advance

You need to enclose your <li> as a router aware component:

import { Link, IndexLink } from 'react-router'

class NavItem extends React.Component {
  render () {
    const { router } = this.context
    const { index, onlyActiveOnIndex, to, children, ...props } = this.props
    
    const isActive = router.isActive(to, onlyActiveOnIndex)
    const LinkComponent = index ? Link : IndexLink

    return (
      <li className={isActive ? 'active' : ''}>
        <LinkComponent {...props}>{children}</LinkComponent>
      </li>
    )
  }
}

Usage:

<ul>
  <NavItem to='/' index={true}>Home</NavItem>
  <NavItem to='/a'>A</NavItem>
</ul>

I took inspration from the react-router-bootstrap module, https://github.com/react-bootstrap/react-router-bootstrap/blob/master/src/LinkContainer.js. I didn't test it though so let me know how it goes.

The other answers don't seem to work in React Router v4. Here's how you can do it:

import React, {PropTypes} from 'react'
import {Route, Link} from 'react-router-dom'
import styles from './styles.less';

export default function NavItem({children, to, exact}) {
    return (
        <Route path={to} exact={exact} children={({match}) => (
            <li className={match ? styles.activeRoute : null}>
                <Link to={to}>{children}</Link>
            </li>
        )}/>
    )
}

NavItem.propTypes = {
    to: PropTypes.string.isRequired,
    exact: PropTypes.bool,
    children: PropTypes.node.isRequired,
};

/**
 * A navigation component
 */
import React, { Component } from 'react'
import { Link, IndexLink, withRouter } from 'react-router'

import styles from './styles.scss'

class NavItem extends Component {
  render () {
    const { router } = this.props
    const { index, to, children, ...props } = this.props

    let isActive
    if( router.isActive('/',true) && index ) isActive = true
    else  isActive = router.isActive(to)
    const LinkComponent = index ?  IndexLink : Link

    return (
      <li className={isActive ? 'active' : ''}>
        <LinkComponent to={to} {...props}>{children}</LinkComponent>
      </li>
    )
  }
}

NavItem = withRouter(NavItem)

export default NavItem

Usage:

<ul className="nav nav-tabs"> 
  <NavItem to='/home' index={true} >Home</NavItem>
  <NavItem to='/about'>About</NavItem>
</ul>

{/* Make sure that `location` is injected into this component */}
<ul className="nav navbar-nav">
  <li className={location.pathname === '/' && 'active'}>
    <Link to='/'>
      Home page
    </Link>
  </li>
  <li className={location.pathname.startsWith('/about') && 'active'}>
    <Link to='/about'>
      About us
    </Link>
  </li>
</ul>

In stead of using <Link />, I use <NavLink /> and It works as well.

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { NavLink } from 'react-router-dom';

//.....

export default class AppNav extends Component {

    render (){
        return (
                <header>
                    <ul className="main-nav">
                        <li><NavLink activeClassName={"active"} exact={true} to="/">Home</NavLink></li>
                        <li><NavLink activeClassName={"active"} to="/about">About</NavLink></li>
                        <li><NavLink activeClassName={"active"} to="/courses">Courses</NavLink></li>
                    </ul>
                </header>
        );
    }
}

Great answer.

Just change the following to get it working...

LinkComponent = index ? IndexLink : Link //If its true you want an IndexLink 

//Also link needs to be...
<NavItem to="/" onlyActiveOnIndex index={true}>Home</NavItem>

Try with react-router-active-component.

I couldn't get any of the previous answers to easily work due to incompatibilities between react or typescript versions (this is definitely not a mature ecosystem), but this component did the trick, and can be applied to other elements than li if needed:

import activeComponent from 'react-router-active-component'
let NavItem = activeComponent('li');
...
<NavItem to='/' onlyActiveOnIndex>Home</NavItem>
<NavItem to='/generate-keywords'>Generate keywords</NavItem>

Using react 15.1.0, react-router 2.5.0 and bootstrap 3.3 (this is less important), I developed this solution for making the links active:

npm install --save classnames

npm install --save lodash

The component:

import React from 'react';
import { Link, IndexLink } from 'react-router';
import _ from 'lodash';
import classnames from 'classnames';

class NavItem extends React.Component {
  constructor(props) {
    super(props);

    // The default state
    this.state = {
      isActive: false,
      unregisterRouteListener: false
    };

    // Binding for functions
    this.locationHasChanged = this.locationHasChanged.bind(this);
  }

  componentDidMount() {
    // Check if component is active on mount and add listener on route change
    this.setState({
      isActive: this.context.router.isActive(this.props.to, true),
      unregisterRouteListener: this.context.router.listen(this.locationHasChanged)
    });
  }

  componentWillUnmount() {
    if (this.state.unregisterRouteListener) {
      // Remove the listener
      this.state.unregisterRouteListener();
    }
    
    // Reset the state
    this.setState({
      isActive: false,
      unregisterRouteListener: false
    });
  }

  // Update the state of the component, based on the router path
  locationHasChanged() {
    this.setState({
      isActive: this.context.router.isActive(this.props.to, true)
    });
  }

  render () {
    let { index } = this.props;
    let LinkComponent = index ? Link : IndexLink;
    let newProps = _.omit(this.props, 'router');

    return (
      <li className={classnames('', this.state.isActive ? 'active' : '' )}>
        <LinkComponent {...newProps}>
          {this.props.children}
        </LinkComponent>
      </li>
    );
  }
}

NavItem.contextTypes = {
  router: React.PropTypes.object
};

export default NavItem;

Usage:

<NavItem to="/list">List</NavItem>

I am a beginner with React, so the above solution surely needs improvements and might contain approach errors. However, it might also contain useful information or a starting point to those interested.

Any feedback or suggestions are more than welcome. Thanks! :)

I'm using React Router v4.2 and I couldn't get the reference to the router object from the wrapping component, because the context is not available.

This did not work:

const { router } = this.context

I like @mpen's answer, but I'm using nested routes and I don't want to change the file where I have the routing component defined.

What I did is compared the location.pathname with to :

const NavItem = withRouter(props => {
  const { to, children, location } = props;
  return (
    <li className={location.pathname == to ? "active" : null}>
      <Link to={to}>{children}</Link>
    </li>
  );
});

I don't know the reason but for me <NavLink activeClassName="active" to="/events"><li>Events</li></NavLink> was not at all working.

After a lot of googling, I found a workaround with the help of useLocation() prop provided by the `react-router-dom.

import React from 'react';
import { useLocation } from 'react-router-dom';

// Active the Link on two URLs

export default () => {
	
    // extract pathname from location
    const { pathname } = useLocation();

	return (
    	<li className='Navigation__list-item'> 
        	<NavLink 
            	to="/events" 
                className={pathname === "/events" ? "active" : ""} >
                Events 
            </NavLink> 
        </li>
    );
};

Using React Router v4, I only got it to work by including the <li> tags within the NavLink component. The solutions which have the <li> tags wrapping the links resulted in the HOME <li> tag always having the active class.

import React from 'react'
import { NavLink } from 'react-router-dom';

class Header extends React.Component {

  render() {
    return (
      <div>
        <header>
          
          <nav>
            <ul>
              <NavLink activeClassName={"active"} exact={true} to="/"><li>Home</li></NavLink>
              <NavLink activeClassName={"active"} to="/about"><li>About</li></NavLink>
              <NavLink activeClassName={"active"} to="/courses"><li>Courses</li></NavLink>
            </ul>
          </nav>

        </header>
      </div>
    )
  }
}

export default Header

I adjusted the li and a CSS selectors accordingly.