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

When a user manually changes the URL in the browser tab, React by default will re-render the application based on the new URL. This behavior is part of the React Router library that manages routing in React applications.

If you want to prevent routing when the user manually changes the URL, you can achieve this by using a combination of server-side rendering and client-side rendering.

Server-side Rendering:

Server-side rendering (SSR) involves rendering the initial HTML on the server and sending it to the client. This allows the client to receive a fully rendered HTML page before any JavaScript is executed. Server-side rendering is useful for search engine optimization and improving performance on the initial page load.

With SSR, React Router will not be able to handle the routing for the entire application, as the rendering is done on the server side. However, it can still handle routing for any subsequent navigation or interactions once the initial HTML page is loaded.

Here’s an example of how you can implement SSR:

{`// Server-side code (Node.js using Express)
const express = require('express');
const ReactDOMServer = require('react-dom/server');
const App = require('./App');

const app = express();

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  const reactApp = ReactDOMServer.renderToString();
  res.send(reactApp);
});

app.listen(3000, () => {
  console.log('Server is running on port 3000');
});`}

In this example, the server renders the React application (<App />) using ReactDOMServer.renderToString and sends it as a response in the app.get('/') route.

Client-side Rendering:

Client-side rendering (CSR) involves rendering the application on the client-side using JavaScript. This is the default behavior of React and React Router.

When the user manually changes the URL, React Router will re-render the application based on the new URL. To prevent this behavior, you can use the history.listen method provided by React Router.

Here’s an example of how you can prevent routing when the URL is manually changed:

{`import React, { useEffect } from 'react';
import { Router, Route, Switch } from 'react-router-dom';
import { createBrowserHistory } from 'history';

const history = createBrowserHistory();

const App = () => {
  useEffect(() => {
    const unlisten = history.listen((location, action) => {
      if (action === 'POP') {
        // Prevent routing when URL is manually changed
        history.push('/');
      }
    });

    return () => {
      unlisten();
    };
  }, []);

  return (
    
      
        
        
        
      
    
  );
};

export default App;`}

In this example, we create a custom browser history instance using createBrowserHistory from the history library. We then listen to the history changes using history.listen and check if the action is 'POP', which indicates a manual URL change. If it is, we prevent routing by pushing the user back to the home page (history.push('/')).

The unlisten function returned from history.listen is used to unsubscribe from the listener when the component is unmounted to prevent memory leaks.