How to Access History Object Outside of a React Component

Question

First of all, I am pretty familiar with the withRouter HoC, however, in this case, it doesn't help because I do not want to access the history object in a component.

I am trying to achieve a mechanism that will redirect the user to the login page if I receive back a 401 from a API endpoint. For making http requests I am using axios. I have around 60 endpoints that I need to cover, that are used in a dozen of components throughout my app.

I want to create a decorator function to the axios instance object, that:

1. makes the request
2. if fail && error_code = 401, update user route to `/login`
3. if success, return promise

The problem I have with the above is to update the route of the user. Previously, in react-router-v3, I could have imported the browserHistory object directly from the react-router package, which is no longer possible.

So, my question is, how can I access the history object outside of the React Component without passing it trough the call stack?

Answer 1

react-router v4 also provides a way to share history via the history package, namely createBrowserHistory() function.

The important part is to make sure that the same history object is shared across your app. To do that you can take advantage of the fact that node modules are singletons.

Create a file called history.js in your project, with the following content:

import { createBrowserHistory } from 'history';

const history = createBrowserHistory();
export default history;

You can then just import it in your application via:

import history from "./history.js";

Please note that only Router accepts the history prop (BrowserRouter does not), so be sure to update your router JSX accordingly:

import { Router } from "react-router-dom";
import history from "./history.js";

// and then in your JSX:
return (
  <Router history={history}>
    {/* routes as usuall */}
  </Router>
)

A working example can be found at https://codesandbox.io/s/owQ8Wrk3