Angular wildcard route replacing child routes

Question

I have a module called "host" with its own routing that I want to insert into the app-routing.module. However, I have the problem of the wildcard loading first and displaying PageNotFoundComponent, instead of the Host component loading. I have the following files.

host.module.ts

....
const routes: Routes = [
  {
    path: 'host',
    children: [
     { path: '', component: HostComponent }
    ]
  }
];

@NgModule({
  declarations: [HostComponent],
  imports: [
    CommonModule,
    RouterModule.forChild(routes)
  ]
})
export class HostModule { }

app-routing.module.ts

const routes: Routes = [
  { path: '', component: HomeComponent, pathMatch: "full"},
  { path: '**', component: PageNotFoundComponent }
];

@NgModule({
  imports: [RouterModule.forRoot(routes)],
  exports: [RouterModule]
})
export class AppRoutingModule { }

app.module.ts

@NgModule({
  declarations: [
    AppComponent,
    HomeComponent,
    PageNotFoundComponent
  ],
  imports: [
    BrowserModule,
    AppRoutingModule,
    HostModule
  ],
  providers: [],
  bootstrap: [AppComponent]
})
export class AppModule { }

app.component.html

<h2>Home</h2>
<ul>
  <li>
    <h2><a routerLink="/host">host</a></h2>
  </li>
</ul>
<router-outlet></router-outlet>

Problem: When I run the app and click on the "Host" button, it loads the PageNotFoundComponent. I obviously want it to go to the HostComponent.

Answer 1

In your app.module.ts you need to reorder your imports

@NgModule({
  declarations: [
    AppComponent,
    HomeComponent,
    PageNotFoundComponent
  ],
  imports: [
    BrowserModule,
    HostModule, <--- this before AppRoutingModule
    AppRoutingModule
  ],
  providers: [],
  bootstrap: [AppComponent]
})
export class AppModule { }

Reason being is because the order of the routes in the configuration matters. https://angular.io/guide/router#configuration

The ** path in the last route is a wildcard. The router will select this route if the requested URL doesn't match any paths for routes defined earlier in the configuration. This is useful for displaying a "404 - Not Found" page or redirecting to another route.

The order of the routes in the configuration matters and this is by design. The router uses a first-match wins strategy when matching routes, so more specific routes should be placed above less specific routes. In the configuration above, routes with a static path are listed first, followed by an empty path route, that matches the default route. The wildcard route comes last because it matches every URL and should be selected only if no other routes are matched first.