Programmatically navigating in React-Router v4

Question

How can I move to a new page after some validation is done with React Router V4? I have something like this:

export class WelcomeForm extends Component {

    handleSubmit = (e) => {
        e.preventDefault()

        if(this.validateForm())
            // send to '/life'

    }
    render() {
        return (
            <form className="WelcomeForm" onSubmit={this.handleSubmit}>
                <input className="minutes" type="number" value={this.state.minutes} onChange={ (e) => this.handleChanges(e, "minutes")}/>
            </form>
        )
    }
}

I would like to send the user to another route. I had a look at Redirect but it seems like it would delete the current page from the history which I don't want.

Answer 1

You are using react-router v4, so you need to use withRouter with your component to access the history object’s properties, then use history.push to change the route dynamically.

withRouter:

You can get access to the history object’s properties and the closest 's match via the withRouter higher-order component. withRouter will re-render its component every time the route changes with the same props as render props: { match, location, history }.

Like this:

import {withRouter} from 'react-router-dom';

class WelcomeForm extends Component {

    handleSubmit = (e) => {
        e.preventDefault()
        if(this.validateForm())
            this.props.history.push("/life");
    }

    render() {
        return (
            <form className="WelcomeForm" onSubmit={this.handleSubmit}>
                <input className="minutes" type="number" value={this.state.minutes} onChange={ (e) => this.handleChanges(e, "minutes")}/>
            </form>
        )
    }
}

export default withRouter(WelcomeForm);

Answer 2

Depending on how you want your redirect to behave there are several options: React router docs

Redirect component

Rendering a will navigate to a new location. The new location will override the current location in the history stack, like server-side redirects (HTTP 3xx) do.

to: string - The URL to redirect to.
to: object - A location to redirect to.
push: bool - When true, redirecting will push a new entry onto the history instead of replacing the current one.

Example: <Redirect push to="/somewhere"/>

import { Route, Redirect } from 'react-router'


export class WelcomeForm extends Component {

    handleSubmit = (e) => {
        e.preventDefault()

        if(this.validateForm())
            <Redirect push to="/life"/>

    }
    render() {
        return (
            <form className="WelcomeForm" onSubmit={this.handleSubmit}>
                <input className="minutes" type="number" value={this.state.minutes} onChange={ (e) => this.handleChanges(e, "minutes")}/>
            </form>
        )
    }
}

Using withRouter HoC

This higher order component will inject the same props as Route. However, it carries along the limitation that you can have only 1 HoC per file.

import { withRouter } from 'react-router-dom'

export class WelcomeForm extends Component {

        handleSubmit = (e) => {
        e.preventDefault()
        if(this.validateForm())
            this.props.history.push("/life");

        }
        render() {
            return (
                <form className="WelcomeForm" onSubmit={this.handleSubmit}>
                    <input className="minutes" type="number" value={this.state.minutes} onChange={ (e) => this.handleChanges(e, "minutes")}/>
                </form>
            )
        }
    }

Answer 3

You can use withRouter higher-order component which will inject history object as property. Then you can use history.push to make redirection:

import { withRouter } from 'react-router-dom';
...

class WelcomeForm extends Component {

    handleSubmit = (e) => {
        e.preventDefault()
        if(this.validateForm())
            this.props.history.push('/life');
    }

    render() {
        return (
            <form className="WelcomeForm" onSubmit={this.handleSubmit}>
                <input className="minutes" type="number" value={this.state.minutes} onChange={ (e) => this.handleChanges(e, "minutes")}/>
            </form>
        )
    }
}
export default withRouter(WelcomeForm);

To make redirection you can also use <Redirect to="/someURL" /> in some cases but this component have to be rendered so you have to use it somewhere in JSX.

Answer 4

If you are using TypeScript extends your component using React.Component<RouteComponentProps> to get this.props.history.push properly

class YourComponent extends React.Component<RouteComponentProps> {
    constructor(props: Readonly<RouteComponentProps>) {
        super(props)
    }

    public render(){
        // you can access history programmatically anywhere on this class
        // this.props.history.push("/")
        return (<div/>)
    }
}
return default withRouter(YourComponent)