Prevent routing in React when user manually changes url in browser tab

Question

I am stuck in a issue that happens when user manually changes the route in browser tab and presses enter. This forces my react router to navigate to the state entered by user. I want to prevent this and allow routing only through the flow I have implemented by button clicks in my website.

Some of my screens need data that will be available only if the user navigates the site using the flow expected. If user directly tries to navigate to a particular route by manually changing the route in url then he may skip the desired flow and hence the app will break.

Other scenario, in case I want to restrict some users from accessing some routes but the user knows the path and manually enters that in browser url then he will be presented with that screen but should not be.

Answer 1

What I do is use a prop from previous page, if that prop is undefined(meaning user did not follow due process :) hehe ) I simply send the user back to the landing page or wherever.

Answer 2

You can create a route guard using HOC. For example, you don't want unauthorized user to pass route /profile, then you can do the following:

// requireAuthorized.js (HOC)
import React, {Component} from 'react'
import PropTypes from 'prop-types'
import {connect} from 'react-redux'
import {Redirect} from 'react-router-dom'

const connector = connect(
  state => ({
    isAuthorized: state.profile !== null // say, you keep user profile in redux
  })
)

export default (WrappedComponent) => {
  return (
    connector(
      class extends Component {
        static propTypes = {
          isAuthorized: PropTypes.bool.isRequired
        }

        render () {
          const {isAuthorized, ...clearedProps} = this.props
          if (isAuthorized) {
            return <WrappedComponent {...clearedProps} />
          } else {
            return <Redirect to={{pathname: '/login'}} />
          }
        }
      }
    )
  )
}


// ProfilePage.jsx
import React from 'react'
...
import requireAdmin from '../hocs/requireAdmin' // adjust path

class ProfilePage extends React.Component {
  ...
  render () {
    return (
      <div>
        ...
      </div>
    )
  }
}

export default requireAdmin(ProfilePage)

Pay attention to the export statement in my ProfilePage.js