I’m using navigation-compose and trying to use `popUpTo` correctly. I have a registration flow where...

# compose

[Robert Menke]

I’m using navigation-compose and trying to use popUpTo correctly. I have a registration flow where I (for illustrative purposes) navigate to A -> B -> C -> D -> SignedIn .

When I navigate to my SignedIn route like so

navController.navigate("SignedIn") {
    popUpTo("D") { inclusive = true }
}

and then press back the app goes back to C. When I continue to press back it goes to B and then A. It seems like my call to popUpTo is ONLY taking D off the back stack rather than popping all previous destinations from the back stack. What am I misunderstanding?

[Tash]

seems like it should work... 🤔 what happens when you don't specify inclusive = true ?

[Tash]

oh sorry, if you want to pop everything upto and including "A" then you might try:

navController.navigate("SignedIn") {
    popUpTo("A") { inclusive = true }
}

[Robert Menke]

I want to pop everything up to and including D. When I specify inclusive = false, back navigates back to D which is what I’d expect.

[Tash]

So do you want to pop A, B, C and D, i.e. the whole graph? If that's the case then aren't you looking for popUpTo("A") { inclusive = true } ?

See this example for using popUpTo for bottom nav bar, esp this snippet:

// Pop up to the start destination of the graph to
              // avoid building up a large stack of destinations
              // on the back stack as users select items
              popUpTo(navController.graph.findStartDestination().id) {
                saveState = true
              }

[Tash]

The comment there kinda explains popUpTo usage

[Robert Menke]

I’m not sure I understand.

// Pop everything up to and including the "home" destination off
// the back stack before navigating to the "friendslist" destination
navController.navigate("friendslist") {
    popUpTo("home") { inclusive = true }
}

The example from the same page indicates it will pop everything up to and including home

[Tash]

I think you have to think of popUpTo in terms of a stack (LIFO). If you have already navigated A -> B -> C -> D and you want to clear that, you have to think in terms of popping the current stack one by one till you reach the desired node, so first you'd pop D, then C, then B and finally A. If you do popUpTo("D") { inclusive = true } then it's just going to pop up to (and including) D.

[Robert Menke]

Yep - had that realization after I posted… sometimes I’m so dumb I swear 😅

[Robert Menke]

Thanks for the help @Tash I appreciate it 🙂