Programmatically call navigation controller back button on iOS

Question

In a UINavigationController-based iPhone app, in a method I would like to perform the programmatic equivalent of the back button being pressed and going back a view.

i.e. automatically press the Jobs button as seen here:

Navigation Controller image

Is there a generic iOS call I can make, or is more information required?

score 190 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 15 '18 at 07:10

190

UINavigationController's -popViewControllerAnimated: method should do what you want:

[navigationController popViewControllerAnimated:YES];

edited Feb 15 '18 at 07:10

Pang

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answered Jan 21 '10 at 08:47

Steve Harrison

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awesome, thanks to Steve and Niels. The solution I used was [self.navigationController popViewControllerAnimated:YES]; easy ;) – oberbaum Jan 21 '10 at 08:54
this works great except viewcontrollers added on uitabbar. any clues?? – virata Jan 05 '12 at 11:40
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I added `[self.navigationController popViewControllerAnimated:YES];` but it does nothing, however there is an alert on taping that button which is working. – mohsin.mr Jul 16 '13 at 11:23
Hmm, I get a blank screen, an unresponsive app and the following in the console: "Finishing up a navigation transition in an unexpected state. Navigation Bar subview tree might get corrupted." – Kurt Jul 12 '14 at 08:35

score 24 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 21 '10 at 09:31

Assuming you don't actually want to PRESS the button programmatically, but simply copy the outcome of pressing the button, you should tell the navigation controller to pop the current view controller.

[self.navigationController popViewControllerAnimated:YES];

This will remove it from the stack, and return you to the previous view controller.

Tal Zion · Answer 3 · 2016-09-23T21:54:52.533

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Swift 3.0

Back to the root view

self.navigationController?.popToRootViewController(animated: true)

Back to the previous view

self.navigationController?.popViewController(animated: true)

Swift 2.3

Back to the root view

self.navigationController?.popToRootViewControllerAnimated(true)

Back to the previous view

self.navigationController?.popViewControllerAnimated(true)

edited Sep 23 '16 at 21:54

answered Dec 26 '15 at 00:14

Tal Zion

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score 7 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 21 '10 at 08:46

7

You should call

popViewControllerAnimated:

which is the opposite of adding view controllers with pushViewController:animated:

answered Jan 21 '10 at 08:46

Niels Castle

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score 6 · Answer 5 · edited Dec 14 '11 at 13:18

[self.navigationController popViewControllerAnimates:YES];

is the best option but if you are nor on the same view controller class or your delegate changes before your back button method called then you can also try--

first you have to define back button---

UIBarButtonItem *newBackButton = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithTitle: @"anyTitleForBackButton" style: UIBarButtonItemStyleBordered target: nil action: @selector(backButtonTapped)];

[[self navigationItem] setBackBarButtonItem: newBackButton];

[newBackButton release];

and then in backButtonTapped method you can call--

[self.navigationController pushViewController:desiredViewController animated:YES];

Programmatically call navigation controller back button on iOS

5 Answers5