How to handle legacy_navigate behavior with non-existent routes?

[davidavz]

Description

In React Navigation v7, the popTo method is recommended as a replacement for the old navigate behavior. However, there's a key difference:

With old navigate behavior:

If route exists in history: go back to it (like popTo)
If route doesn't exist: push it while preserving history (unlike popTo)

With popTo:

If route exists in history: go back to it (works as expected)
If route doesn't exist: clears entire history then pushes the new route

Question

How can we replicate the old behavior for non-existent routes? Specifically, when navigating to a screen that doesn't exist in history, how can we push it without clearing the existing history?
Example: With history A > B, how can we navigate to screen C to get A > B > C rather than just C?

[satya164]

If route doesn't exist: clears entire history then pushes the new route

That's not what popTo does. It only replaces the current route (i.e., pops the current route and adds the new route) when adding a non-existent route, not clearing the entire history.

You can replicate the behavior of the old navigate with a pop option in the latest version:

navigation.navigate({ name: 'ScreenName', params: {..}, pop: true })

[davidavz]

Thanks I didn't know about this option but I see that this is quite new!