How to use router.navigateByUrl and router.navigat

Question

https://angular.io/api/router/RouterLink gives a good overview of how to create links that will take the user to a different route in Angular4, however I can't find how to do the same thing programmatically rather needing the user to click a link

Answer 1

navigateByUrl

routerLink directive as used like this:

<a [routerLink]="/inbox/33/messages/44">Open Message 44</a>

is just a wrapper around imperative navigation using router and its navigateByUrl method:

router.navigateByUrl('/inbox/33/messages/44')

as can be seen from the sources:

export class RouterLink {
  ...

  @HostListener('click')
  onClick(): boolean {
    ...
    this.router.navigateByUrl(this.urlTree, extras);
    return true;
  }

So wherever you need to navigate a user to another route, just inject the router and use navigateByUrl method:

class MyComponent {
   constructor(router: Router) {
      this.router.navigateByUrl(...);
   }
}

navigate

There's another method on the router that you can use - navigate:

router.navigate(['/inbox/33/messages/44'])

difference between the two

Using router.navigateByUrl is similar to changing the location bar directly–we are providing the “whole” new URL. Whereas router.navigate creates a new URL by applying an array of passed-in commands, a patch, to the current URL.

To see the difference clearly, imagine that the current URL is '/inbox/11/messages/22(popup:compose)'.

With this URL, calling router.navigateByUrl('/inbox/33/messages/44') will result in '/inbox/33/messages/44', and calling router.navigate('/inbox/33/messages/44') will result in '/inbox/33/messages/44(popup:compose)'.

Read more in the official docs.

Answer 2

In addition to the provided answer, there are more details to navigate. From the function's comments:

/**
 * Navigate based on the provided array of commands and a starting point.
 * If no starting route is provided, the navigation is absolute.
 *
 * Returns a promise that:
 * - resolves to 'true' when navigation succeeds,
 * - resolves to 'false' when navigation fails,
 * - is rejected when an error happens.
 *
 * ### Usage
 *
 * ```
 * router.navigate(['team', 33, 'user', 11], {relativeTo: route});
 *
 * // Navigate without updating the URL
 * router.navigate(['team', 33, 'user', 11], {relativeTo: route, skipLocationChange: true});
 * ```
 *
 * In opposite to `navigateByUrl`, `navigate` always takes a delta that is applied to the current
 * URL.
 */

The Router Guide has more details on programmatic navigation.