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Version: 7.x

CommonActions reference

A navigation action is an object containing at least a type property. Internally, the action can be handled by routers with the getStateForAction method to return a new state from an existing navigation state.

Each navigation actions can contain at least the following properties:

  • type (required) - A string that represents the name of the action.
  • payload (options) - An object containing additional information about the action. For example, it will contain name and params for navigate.
  • source (optional) - The key of the route which should be considered as the source of the action. This is used for some actions to determine which route to apply the action on. By default, navigation.dispatch adds the key of the route that dispatched the action.
  • target (optional) - The key of the navigation state the action should be applied on.

It's important to highlight that dispatching a navigation action doesn't throw any error when the action is unhandled (similar to when you dispatch an action that isn't handled by a reducer in redux and nothing happens).

Common actions​

The library exports several action creators under the CommonActions namespace. You should use these action creators instead of writing action objects manually.

The navigate action allows to navigate to a specific route. It takes the following arguments:

  • name - string - A destination name of the screen in the current or a parent navigator.
  • params - object - Params to use for the destination route.
  • merge - boolean - Whether params should be merged with the existing route params, or replace them (when navigating to an existing screen). Defaults to false.
navigation.dispatch(
  CommonActions.navigate('Profile', { user: 'jane' })
);
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In a stack navigator (stack or native stack), calling navigate with a screen name will have the following behavior:

  • If you're already on a screen with the same name, it will update its params and not push a new screen.
  • If you're on a different screen, it will push the new screen onto the stack.
  • If the getId prop is specified, and another screen in the stack has the same ID, it will navigate to that screen and update its params instead.
Advanced usage

The navigate action can also accepts an object as the argument with the following properties:

  • name - string - A destination name of the screen in the current or a parent navigator
  • params - object - Params to use for the destination route.
  • merge - boolean - Whether params should be merged with the existing route params, or replace them (when navigating to an existing screen). Defaults to false.
  • path - string - The path (from deep link or universal link) to associate with the screen.

This is primarily used internally to associate a path with a screen when it's from a URL.

reset​

The reset action allows to reset the navigation state to the given state. It takes the following arguments:

navigation.dispatch(
  CommonActions.reset({
    index: 1,
    routes: [
      {
        name: 'Profile',
        params: { user: 'jane', key: route.params.key },
      },
      { name: 'Home' },
    ],
  })
);
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The state object specified in reset replaces the existing navigation state with the new one. This means that if you provide new route objects without a key, or route objects with a different key, it'll remove the existing screens for those routes and add new screens.

If you want to preserve the existing screens but only want to modify the state, you can pass a function to dispatch where you can get the existing state. Then you can change it as you like (make sure not to mutate the existing state, but create new state object for your changes). and return a reset action with the desired state:

import { CommonActions } from '@react-navigation/native';

navigation.dispatch((state) => {
  // Remove all the screens after `Profile`
  const index = state.routes.findIndex((r) => r.name === 'Profile');
  const routes = state.routes.slice(0, index + 1);

  return CommonActions.reset({
    ...state,
    routes,
    index: routes.length - 1,
  });
});
warning

Consider the navigator's state object to be internal and subject to change in a minor release. Avoid using properties from the navigation state state object except index and routes, unless you really need it. If there is some functionality you cannot achieve without relying on the structure of the state object, please open an issue.

Rewriting the history with reset​

Since the reset action can update the navigation state with a new state object, it can be used to rewrite the navigation history. However, rewriting the history to alter the back stack is not recommended in most cases:

  • It can lead to a confusing user experience, as users expect to be able to go back to the screen they were on before.
  • When supporting the Web platform, the browser's history will still reflect the old navigation state, so users will see the old screen if they use the browser's back button - resulting in 2 different experiences depending on which back button the user presses.

So if you have such a use case, consider a different approach - e.g. updating the history once the user navigates back to the screen that has changed.

goBack​

The goBack action creator allows to go back to the previous route in history. It doesn't take any arguments.

navigation.dispatch(CommonActions.goBack());
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If you want to go back from a particular route, you can add a source property referring to the route key and a target property referring to the key of the navigator which contains the route:

navigation.dispatch({
  ...CommonActions.goBack(),
  source: route.key,
  target: route?.params?.key,
});
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By default, the key of the route that dispatched the action is passed as the source property and the target property is undefined.

preload​

The preload action allows preloading a screen in the background before navigating to it. It takes the following arguments:

  • name - string - A destination name of the screen in the current or a parent navigator.
  • params - object - Params to use for the destination route.
navigation.dispatch(
  CommonActions.preload('Profile', { user: 'jane' })
);
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Preloading a screen means that the screen will be rendered in the background. All the components in the screen will be mounted and the useEffect hooks will be called. This can be useful when you want to improve the perceived performance by hiding the delay in mounting heavy components or loading data.

Depending on the navigator, preload may work differently:

  • In a stack navigator (stack, native stack), the screen will be rendered off-screen and animated in when you navigate to it. If getId is specified, it'll be used for the navigation to identify the preloaded screen.
  • In a tab or drawer navigator (bottom tabs, material top tabs, drawer, etc.), the existing screen will be rendered as if lazy was set to false. Calling preload on a screen that is already rendered will not have any effect.

When a screen is preloaded in a stack navigator, it will have a few limitations:

  • It can't dispatch navigation actions (e.g. navigate, goBack, etc.).
  • It can't update options with navigation.setOptions.
  • It can't listen to events from the navigator (e.g. focus, tabPress, etc.).

The navigation object will be updated once you navigate to the screen. So if you have an event listener in a useEffect hook, and have a dependency on navigation, it will add any listeners when the screen is navigated to:

React.useEffect(() => {
  const unsubscribe = navigation.addListener('tabPress', () => {
    // do something
  });

  return () => {
    unsubscribe();
  };
}, [navigation]);

Similarly, for dispatching actions or updating options, you can check if the screen is focused before doing so:

if (navigation.isFocused()) {
  navigation.setOptions({ title: 'Updated title' });
}

setParams​

The setParams action allows to update params for a certain route. It takes the following arguments:

  • params - object - required - New params to be merged into existing route params.
navigation.dispatch({
  ...CommonActions.setParams({ user: 'Wojtek' }),
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If you want to set params for a particular route, you can add a source property referring to the route key:

navigation.dispatch({
  ...CommonActions.setParams({ user: 'Wojtek' }),
  source: route.key,
});
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If the source property is explicitly set to undefined, it'll set the params for the focused route.