React-router: How to manually invoke Link?

Question

I'm new to ReactJS and to React-Router. I have a component that receives through props a <Link/> object from react-router. Whenever the user clicks on a 'next' button inside this component I want to invoke <Link/> object manually.

Right now, I'm using refs to access the backing instance and manually clicking on the 'a' tag that <Link/> generates.

Question: Is there a way to manually invoke the Link (e.g. this.props.next.go)?

This is the current code I have:

//in MasterPage.js
var sampleLink = <Link to="/sample">Go To Sample</Link>
<Document next={sampleLink} />

//in Document.js
...
var Document = React.createClass({
   _onClickNext: function() {
      var next = this.refs.next.getDOMNode();
      next.querySelectorAll('a').item(0).click(); //this sounds like hack to me
   },
   render: function() {
      return (
         ...
         <div ref="next">{this.props.next} <img src="rightArrow.png" onClick={this._onClickNext}/></div>
         ...
      );
   }
});
...

This is the code I would like to have:

//in MasterPage.js
var sampleLink = <Link to="/sample">Go To Sample</Link>
<Document next={sampleLink} />

//in Document.js
...
var Document = React.createClass({
   render: function() {
      return (
         ...
         <div onClick={this.props.next.go}>{this.props.next.label} <img src="rightArrow.png" /> </div>
         ...
      );
   }
});
...

Answer 1

React Router v5 - React 16.8+ with Hooks (updated 09/23/2020)

If you're leveraging React Hooks, you can take advantage of the useHistory API that comes from React Router v5.

import React, {useCallback} from 'react';
import {useHistory} from 'react-router-dom';

export default function StackOverflowExample() {
  const history = useHistory();
  const handleOnClick = useCallback(() => history.push('/sample'), [history]);

  return (
    <button type="button" onClick={handleOnClick}>
      Go home
    </button>
  );
}

Another way to write the click handler if you don't want to use useCallback

const handleOnClick = () => history.push('/sample');

React Router v4 - Redirect Component

The v4 recommended way is to allow your render method to catch a redirect. Use state or props to determine if the redirect component needs to be shown (which then trigger's a redirect).

import { Redirect } from 'react-router';

// ... your class implementation

handleOnClick = () => {
  // some action...
  // then redirect
  this.setState({redirect: true});
}

render() {
  if (this.state.redirect) {
    return <Redirect push to="/sample" />;
  }

  return <button onClick={this.handleOnClick} type="button">Button</button>;
}

Reference: https://reacttraining.com/react-router/web/api/Redirect

React Router v4 - Reference Router Context

You can also take advantage of Router's context that's exposed to the React component.

static contextTypes = {
  router: PropTypes.shape({
    history: PropTypes.shape({
      push: PropTypes.func.isRequired,
      replace: PropTypes.func.isRequired
    }).isRequired,
    staticContext: PropTypes.object
  }).isRequired
};

handleOnClick = () => {
  this.context.router.push('/sample');
}

This is how <Redirect /> works under the hood.

Reference: https://github.com/ReactTraining/react-router/blob/master/packages/react-router/modules/Redirect.js#L46,L60

React Router v4 - Externally Mutate History Object

If you still need to do something similar to v2's implementation, you can create a copy of BrowserRouter then expose the history as an exportable constant. Below is a basic example but you can compose it to inject it with customizable props if needed. There are noted caveats with lifecycles, but it should always rerender the Router, just like in v2. This can be useful for redirects after an API request from an action function.

// browser router file...
import createHistory from 'history/createBrowserHistory';
import { Router } from 'react-router';

export const history = createHistory();

export default class BrowserRouter extends Component {
  render() {
    return <Router history={history} children={this.props.children} />
  }
}

// your main file...
import BrowserRouter from './relative/path/to/BrowserRouter';
import { render } from 'react-dom';

render(
  <BrowserRouter>
    <App/>
  </BrowserRouter>
);

// some file... where you don't have React instance references
import { history } from './relative/path/to/BrowserRouter';

history.push('/sample');

Latest BrowserRouter to extend: https://github.com/ReactTraining/react-router/blob/master/packages/react-router-dom/modules/BrowserRouter.js

React Router v2

Push a new state to the browserHistory instance:

import {browserHistory} from 'react-router';
// ...
browserHistory.push('/sample');

Reference: https://github.com/reactjs/react-router/blob/master/docs/guides/NavigatingOutsideOfComponents.md