I spent hours wondering why my Doctors.jsx page wouldn’t filter doctors by specialty when navigating from the homepage. Everything seemed fine — the URL updated, the component loaded, the context had data… but still, no filtered doctors were showing up.
Turns out, the issue wasn’t my state, context, or filtering logic.
It was a single missing character: ? in the route definition.
❌ What I Had:
<Route path="/doctors/:specialty" element={<Doctors />} />
This meant the route expected a specialty — so visiting just /doctors didn’t match the route at all, and nothing showed.
✅ What I Should’ve Had:
<Route path="/doctors/:specialty?" element={<Doctors />} />
That little ? makes the :specialty param optional — meaning:
/doctors → shows all doctors
/doctors/Gynecologist → filters doctors by that specialty
💡 What I Learned:
A route without ? will not match if the dynamic part is missing.
React Router does not remount components when only the param changes — so your component must listen for changes using useEffect().
Always double-check optional parameters in your route definitions when building filters, tabs, or dynamic content pages.
Lesson to Pass On:
To any devs or React learners out there:
"One character can make your whole feature fail. Learn to debug routes just like you debug logic. And never underestimate a ?."
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