back button callback in navigationController in iO

Question

I have pushed a view onto the navigation controller and when I press the back button it goes to the previous view automatically. I want to do a few things when back button is pressed before popping the view off the stack. Which is the back button callback function?

Answer 1

William Jockusch's answer solve this problem with easy trick.

-(void) viewWillDisappear:(BOOL)animated {
    if ([self.navigationController.viewControllers indexOfObject:self]==NSNotFound) {
       // back button was pressed.  We know this is true because self is no longer
       // in the navigation stack.  
    }
    [super viewWillDisappear:animated];
}

Answer 2

For "BEFORE popping the view off the stack" :

- (void)willMoveToParentViewController:(UIViewController *)parent{
    if (parent == nil){
        NSLog(@"do whatever you want here");
    }
}

Answer 3

This is the correct way to detect this.

- (void)willMoveToParentViewController:(UIViewController *)parent{
    if (parent == nil){
        //do stuff

    }
}

this method is called when view is pushed as well. So checking parent==nil is for popping view controller from stack

Answer 4

There's a more appropriate way than asking the viewControllers. You can make your controller a delegate of the navigationBar that has the back button. Here's an example. In the implementation of the controller where you want to handle the press of the back button, tell it that it will implement the UINavigationBarDelegate protocol:

@interface MyViewController () <UINavigationBarDelegate>

Then somewhere in your initialization code (probably in viewDidLoad) make your controller the delegate of its navigation bar:

self.navigationController.navigationBar.delegate = self;

Finally, implement the shouldPopItem method. This method gets called right when the back button is pressed. If you have multiple controllers or navigation Items in the stack, you'll probably want to check which of those navigation items is getting popped (the item parameter), so that you only do your custom stuff when you expect to. Here's an example:

-(BOOL)navigationBar:(UINavigationBar *)navigationBar shouldPopItem:(UINavigationItem *)item
{
    NSLog(@"Back button got pressed!");
    //if you return NO, the back button press is cancelled
    return YES;
}

Answer 5

This is what it works for me in Swift:

override func viewWillDisappear(_ animated: Bool) {
    if self.navigationController?.viewControllers.index(of: self) == nil {
        // back button pressed or back gesture performed
    }

    super.viewWillDisappear(animated)
}

Answer 6

In my opinion the best solution.

- (void)didMoveToParentViewController:(UIViewController *)parent
{
    if (![parent isEqual:self.parentViewController]) {
         NSLog(@"Back pressed");
    }
}

But it only works with iOS5+