Handle back button with react router - reactjs

Question

If a user navigates to www.example.com/one and clicks the back button, I want to redirect them to www.example.com.
I think it's a common problem, but I haven't found a solution yet.

Answer 1

Hooks version (React 16.8+):
Minimal version.
import { useHistory } from "react-router-dom";
export const Item = () => {
let history = useHistory();
return (
<>
<button onClick={() => history.goBack()}>Back</button>
</>
);
};

Answer 2

In react-router-dom v6 useHistory() is replaced by useNavigate(). so use useNavigate() inplace of useHistory() this way.
import { useNavigate} from "react-router-dom";
export const Item = () => {
let navigate = useNavigate();
return (
<>
<button onClick={() => navigate(-1)}>Back</button>
</>
);
};
for more on useNavigate visit this: https://reactrouter.com/docs/en/v6/hooks/use-navigate

Answer 3

You can try with two options, either you can use push method or goBack method from history of the router. Normally history props will available if you directly route the component via Route method or pass the history props to child component and use it.
Sample Code given below
this.props.history.push('/') //this will go to home page
or
this.props.history.goBack() //this will go to previous page
For your problem you try with push method and give the exact url you to move on.
For more reference visit https://reacttraining.com/react-router/web/api/history

Answer 4

What you want is this:
Let's say a person goes to a single page in your website such as: www.yoursite.com/category/books/romeo-and-juliet
In this page, you want to show a "Back" button that links you to one upper directory which is: www.yoursite.com/category/books/
This is breadcrumb system that we famously had in vBulletin forums and such.
Here is a basic solution to this:
let url = window.location.href;
let backButtonUrl = "";
if (url.charAt(url.length - 1) === "/") {
backButtonUrl = url.slice(0, url.lastIndexOf("/"));
backButtonUrl = backButtonUrl.slice(0, backButtonUrl.lastIndexOf("/"));
} else {
backButtonUrl = url.slice(0, url.lastIndexOf("/"));
}
What it basically does is:
1. Get the current URL from browser
2. Check if there is a "/" (slash) at the end of the link.
a. If there is: remove the slash, and remove everything the last slash
b. If there is not: remove everything last slash.
You can use {backButtonUrl} as your Go Back button link.
Note: it does not have anything to do with React Router, history, etc.
Note 2: Assuming you are using a link architecture that goes like www.site.com/word/letter/character
If you want to use it with react-router-dom library, then you need to set your url variable like this:
let url = this.props.match.url;

Answer 5

I found a solution. It's not beautiful but it works.
class Restaurant extends Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props);
this.props.history.push('/');
this.props.history.push(this.props.match.url);
}
...

Answer 6

I've had the same problem today. I have the following flow in one of the applications I'm working on:
User fills out a registration form
User enters credit card "payment page"
When payment is successful, the user sees a "payment confirmation" page.
I want to prevent the users from navigating from the "payment confirmation" (3) page back to any previous steps in the payment flow (1 and 2).
The best thing to do would be not to use routes to control which content is displayed, and use state instead. If you cannot afford to do that,
I found two practical ways to solve the problem:
Using React-Router:
When you hit the back button, React Router's history object will look like this:
When you go to any page using history.push record the page you are visiting in the state
Create a decorator, HOC, or whatever type of wrapper you prefer around the React-Router's Route component. In this component: If history.action === "POP" and "history.state.lastVisited === <some page with back navigation disabled>", then you should redirect your user to the /home page using history.replace
Another way to do is is by going to the /home page directly:
Use history.action to detect the back button was used, then:
Change location.href to equal the page you want to visit
Call location.reload(). This will reload the application, and the history will be reset

Answer 7

Browser back button works on your routes history. It will not invoke your programmatically handled routing. That's the point where we should keep maintain history stack with react router. If you are at route '/' and push '/home'. On browser back button it will pop '/home and will go back to '/'.
Even If you implementButton component for go back functionality and use react router history props. Believe me you have to carefully manage your navigation to maintain browser history stack appropriately. So it behaves same like whether you press browser back button or your app Button to go back or go forward.
I hope this would be helpful.

Answer 8

We wanted something similar for our React app and unfortunately this was the best solution we came up with. This is particularly helpful when our users are on mobile devices and they land on a specific page on our site from an ad or a referrer.
This is in our main routes.tsx file.
useEffect(() => {
// The path that the user is supposed to go to
const destinationPath = location.pathname;
// If our site was opened in a new window or tab and accessed directly
// OR the page before this one was NOT a page on our site, then...
if (
document.referrer === window.location.href ||
document.referrer.indexOf(window.location.host) === -1
) {
// Replaces the current pathname with the homepage
history.replace("/");
// Then pushes to the path the user was supposed to go to
history.push(destinationPath);
}
}, []);
Now when a user presses the back button, it takes the user to our homepage instead of being stuck within the "nested" route they were in.
NOTE: There are some small quirks with this implementation. Our app is also a Cordova app so we NEED to have our own back button. This implementation works well with our own back button but does not seem to work with the native browser's back button; hence, it worked well for our needs.