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Dynamic Page in Next.js

Last updated on 28 Aug, 2022

Next.js is a React framework to build web application. Next.js creates page routes based on file and folder structure. We can also set and handle dynamic pages in Next.js.

Handle Dynamic Path

We can find dynamic paths everywhere. If we consider petco.com, the product url for "Hill's Science Diet Adult Sensitive Stomach & Skin Chicken Recipe Dry Dog Food, 30 lbs" is:

https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/product/hills-science-diet-adult-sensitive-stomach-and-skin-chicken-recipe-dry-dog-food

And the product url for "Hill's Science Diet Adult Sensitive Stomach & Skin Small Bites Chicken Recipe Dry Dog Food, 15 lbs., Bag" is:

https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/product/hills-science-diet-adult-sensitive-stomach-and-skin-small-bites-chicken-recipe-dry-dog-food

If you observe above urls, only the last portion changes.

If we need to build a structure like petco's using Next.js, we need to create a folder structure like:

pages
|_shop
  |_en
    |_petcostore
      |_product
        |_[slug].js

In this case slug is kind of a placeholder that takes the value that comes after /shop/en/petcostore/product.

Inside [slug].js, we can read the value of slug as follows:

import { useRouter } from "next/router";

const Product = () => {
  const router = useRouter();
  const { slug } = router.query;

  return <h1>Product: {slug}</h1>;
};

export default Product;

The value of slug can be retrieved from Next.js router object.

Multi Level Dynamic Path

What if we need a dynamic url like below:

example.com/posts/<category>/<sort_order>

In this case we need to create the folder structure like below:

pages
|_posts
  |_[category]
    |_[sort_order].js

Note that we have given the category folder name inside square brackets. And inside [sort_order].js we can read the values of category and sort_order like below:

import { useRouter } from "next/router";

const Product = () => {
  const router = useRouter();
  const { category, sort_order } = router.query;

  return (
    <h1>
      Product: {category} | {sort_order}
    </h1>
  );
};
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Joby Joseph
Web Architect