Angular – Why does route guard canLoad not fire, but canActivate does

angularangular2-routingtypescript

I have an angular 2.0.1 (final) app that uses HashLocationStrategy for the route navigation strategy.

I define one of my routes as follows:

    { 
    path: 'shiftmanage', component: ShiftManageComponent,
    canLoad: [AuthGuard],
    canActivate: [AuthGuard] 
    },

Here is the AuthGuard Class:

    import { Injectable }           from '@angular/core';
    import { 
        Route, 
        Router, 
        CanLoad, 
        CanActivate,
        ActivatedRouteSnapshot, 
        RouterStateSnapshot }       from '@angular/router';

    @Injectable()
    export class AuthGuard implements CanLoad, CanActivate {
        constructor(private router: Router) {
            console.log("AuthGuard constructor")
        }

        canLoad(route: Route): boolean {
            if (route.path === "shifts") {
                return true;
            } else {
                return false;
            }        
        }

        canActivate(route: ActivatedRouteSnapshot, state: RouterStateSnapshot): boolean {
            if (route.routeConfig.path === "shiftmanage") {
                return true;
            } else {
                return false;
            }
        }
    }

and I add this guard class to the NgModule Providers like so:

providers: [
    AuthGuard,
    { provide: LocationStrategy, useClass: HashLocationStrategy }
    ... other providers
]

The navigation works and the canActivate route guard is hit whenever I try to navigate to the shiftmanage path.

PROBLEM: The canLoad route guard is never hit.

QUESTION:

Is this canLoad guard not being hit because of the HashLocationStrategy or is there something else I am doing wrong?

Best Answer

canLoad is used for loading lazy-loaded modules with loadChildren

{
  path: 'child',
  canLoad: [AuthGuard],
  loadChildren: 'path/to/child.module'
}