useNavigate tutorial React JS

Hi guys !.

In this post we will learn how to use the useNavigate hook in React JS. useNavigate is part of React Router and has replaced useHistory, although it is similar to useHistory, but with more useful features.

useNavigate is a new hook introduced in React Router v6 and it is extremely useful and easy to use.

Uses:

1. Go to the previous or next pages
2. Redirect user to a specific Url

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Step 1:

Install React Router as useNavigate is part of the react router dom package. Install using the following 2 commands:

Note : useNavigate is only available in React Router Dom v6

npm install history@5 react-router-dom@6

Step 2:

Import useNavigate from React Router using the following code. This line of code can be added in any react class or function (however we are using a functional component in this example).

import { useNavigate } from 'react-router';

Step 3:

Now we will assign the useNavigate() function to a variable for ease of use. Add the following code:

let navigate = useNavigate();

Step 4:

Now you can use the variable name anywhere to navigate to a page, previous page or next page.

Example 1:

Redirect user to another page:

function Redirect() {
  let navigate = useNavigate();
  function handleClick() {
    navigate('/home')
  }
  return (
    <div>
      <button onClick={handleClick}>go home</button>
    </div>
  );
}

In the above code, the navigate('/home') is used to redirect the user on button click.

Example 2:

In this example, we will see how to redirect to previous page:

function Redirect() {
  let navigate = useNavigate();
  function handleClick() {
    navigate(-1)
  }
  return (
    <div>
      <button onClick={handleClick}>go home</button>
    </div>
  );
}

Example 3:

In this example, we will see how to redirect user to the next page (in history)

function Redirect() {
  let navigate = useNavigate();
  function handleClick() {
    navigate(1)
  }
  return (
    <div>
      <button onClick={handleClick}>go home</button>
    </div>
  );

As you can see in the above two examples, -1 is used to go to the previous page while 1 is used to go to the next page.

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Comments

[Vishma Pratim Das]

Hey,
so according to react router documentation, useNavigate() returns a method that allows us to navigate from one link to another. We don't store it inside the navigate variable. It is a hook. It is not a regular function. When we assign useNavigate() to navigate, the hook gets called and the method gets returned, which is stored inside it.

[Fahad Ashiq]

Very Useful.

[nvg-rae]

Thanks for bearing with a newbie comment! I used to be able to just do this.props.history.push(/Welcome) in my class component to go to a new route from the click handler in a class component. Now I need to create an entire functional component just to use that "extremely useful and easy to use" function? Any tips on how to handle that in a class component are greatly appreciated.

[Saleh Mubashar]

Hi
Ok so the problem is that you can not use this prop in class components because the children components must use react hooks to access the route context which is only possible with functional components.
Check this out: stackoverflow.com/questions/647829...

[nvg-rae]

Thank you for taking a look, Saleh!

[Saleh Mubashar]

no problem :).
if you have any questions, you can always reach out to me on twitter
cheers :)

[Bennett B Madavana]

Thanks for the article,
Is it okay to use a button instead of an anchor tag when you're redirecting to another page? won't it cause accessibility issues?

[Piero Sabino]

Hi, I have a problem, watching a video on youtube that used history.push ('/ login? redirect = shipping'), how can I modify it using navigate, because if I use the string "navigate ('/ login? redirect = shipping') even if logged in it returns to home page and does not go to the shipping page.

[siyan_david]

Sorry did you figure it out im having same issue

[Jovica Aleksic]

Please note that you can NOT use a hook in class-based components, as is stated here. Functional components only.

[Saleh Mubashar]

Yes you are right, i forgot to mention that

[darneltaphil]

Can I use useNavigate to send props to the page I am redirecting to?

[Hammed A]

Yes, you can pass props

[Clement Gitonga]

What if you want to pass data to the next page? for example select a record from a grid then open edit page passing the selected data

[Hammed A]

Yes, you can pass data
navigate("/todos", { state: { newId: id } })

[Abhinav Saxena]

How do we get this state on the receiving end?

[Abhinav Saxena]

How do we pass state with useNavigation and receive it on the other end?

[bapangit]

Want to delete '/login' and navigate to '/profile' after login has successful. How can I delete current '/login' using useNavigate() ?