way - Type Safe Path Builder

Introduction

way is a TypeScript library that makes it possible to define and create type safe URL paths. It also supports handling query parameters in a type-safe way.

Both query serialization and query parsing is configurable, but way supports URLSearchParams and Zod out-of-the-box.

Installation

npm install @katis/way

Features

• Define URL path schemas with both named and parameter segments.
• Create paths with optional query parameters.
• Parse query parameters for a specific path in a type-safe manner.
• Create partial paths for router libraries etc.

Basic Usage

Defining Schema

A schema defines the shape of your paths and their associated queries. It can consist of named segments, parameter segments, and associated queries.

Here's an example of the features of the library:

import { way } from "@katis/way";
import zod from "zod";

// Query parameters can be parsed into a type safe object by implementing a QueryParser.
// way can use Zod types as QueryParser out-of-the-box.
const RootQuery = zod.object({
  search: zod.string().optional(),
});

// By default, way decodes query strings using URLSearchParameters, which doesn't
// automatically convert booleans and numbers.
const ProductQuery = zod.object({
  modal: zod.enum(["true", "false"]).transform((b) => b === "true"),
});

// Define a schema for your app's path hierarchy.
const schema = {
  // way.path defines the root route as a path builder that takes a RootQuery query parameter
  [way.path]: RootQuery,
  // routes can be nested to create your apps path hierarchy
  products: {
    // way.param.paramName defines a path segment that can take arbitrary strings
    // paramName is not used for path building, but is useful for documentation purposes
    [way.param.productId]: {
      [way.path]: ProductQuery,
      // details defined as a single path that takes no query parameters
      details: { [way.path]: way.NoQuery },
    },
    // parameter segments can coexist on the same level with named segments
    edit: { [way.path]: ProductEditQuery },
  },
} satisfies way.Schema;

// Create a path builder from the schema.
const root = way.root(schema);

const index = root({ search: "socks" });
// index = "/?search=socks"

const productA = root.products["prod-a"]({ modal: true });
// productA = /products/prod-a?modal=true

const detailsB = root.products["prod-b"].details();
// detailsB = /products/prod-b/details

// Decode and parse a query string into a type safe object.
const query = root.products["productId"](way.query, "modal=true");
// query = { modal: "true" }

Relative paths

way.rel can be used to create relative path builders:

const productsRel = root.products(way.rel);

const path = productsRel["prod-a"].details();
// path = prod-a/details

Routes

way.route can be used to build a path from any segment without query parameters. This is useful for configuring routing libraries.

const productsRel = root.products(way.rel);

function Routes() {
  return (
    <Routes>
      {/* path = "/products" */}
      <Route path={root.products(way.route)}>
        { /* path = ":productId/details" */ }
        <Route path={productsRel[":productId"].details(way.route)}>
        { /* path = ":productId" */ }
        <Route path={productsRel[":productId"](way.route)}>
      </Route>
    </Routes>
  )
}

Custom query codec

A query codec is an object that encodes and decodes a query string into a JS object and back.

import queryString from "query-string";

const codec: way.QueryCodec = {
  decode: (encoded) => queryString.parse(encoded, { parseBooleans: true }),
  encode: (query) => queryString.stringify(query),
};

const RootQuery = zod.object({
  modal: zod.boolean().default(false),
});

const root = way.root(schema, { codec });

const search = "?modal=true";
const query = root.products["1234"](way.query, search);
// query = { modal: true }

Custom query parser

Query parser is just an object with a parse-method. The type of the query is infered from the parser.

const DateQuery: way.QueryParser<{ date: Date }> = {
  parse(obj) {
    const date = new Date(obj.date as any);
    if (isNaN(date.valueOf())) throw Error("Invalid date");
    return { date };
  },
};

const root = way.root({
  [way.path]: DateQuery,
});
root({ date: new Date() });