Sample showing how programmatic SwiftUI navigation doesn't work and ignores the source of truth.

NavigationTruthIssue.swift

//  Created by Miroslav Djukic on 9.6.21.

import SwiftUI

struct AView: View {
    
    @EnvironmentObject var navigatonState: NavigationState
    
    var body: some View {
        NavigationView {
            VStack {
                Text("AView")
                
                Spacer().frame(height: 30)
                
                NavigationLink("Next", destination: BView(), isActive: $navigatonState.bViewActive)
              
                Button("Go to D", action: navigatonState.navigateToDView)
            }
            .frame(maxWidth: .infinity, maxHeight: .infinity)
            .background(Color.black)
        }
    }
}

struct BView: View {
    
    @EnvironmentObject var navigatonState: NavigationState
    
    var body: some View {
        VStack {
            Text("BView")
            
            Spacer().frame(height: 30)
            
            NavigationLink("Next", destination: CView(), isActive: $navigatonState.cViewActive)
                
        }
        .frame(maxWidth: .infinity, maxHeight: .infinity)
        .background(Color.red)
    }
}

struct CView: View {
    
    @EnvironmentObject var navigatonState: NavigationState
    
    var body: some View {
        VStack {
            Text("CView")
            
            Spacer().frame(height: 30)
            
            NavigationLink("Next", destination: DView(), isActive: $navigatonState.dViewActive)
            
        }
        .frame(maxWidth: .infinity, maxHeight: .infinity)
        .background(Color.green)
    }
}

struct DView: View {
    var body: some View {
        VStack {
            Text("DView")
        }
        .frame(maxWidth: .infinity, maxHeight: .infinity)
        .background(Color.yellow)
    }
}

final class NavigationState: ObservableObject {
  
    @Published var bViewActive = false
    @Published var cViewActive = false
    @Published var dViewActive = false
    
    // This doesn't work normal with any delay less then 0.5s, toggle if/else below to see 
    func navigateToDView() {
      #if true // doesn't work
        bViewActive = true
        cViewActive = true
        dViewActive = true
      #else // works
        bViewActive = true
        DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + 0.5) { [weak self] in
           self?.cViewActive = true
           DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + 0.5) {
               self?.dViewActive = true
           }
        }
      #endif
    }
}

Full project by @DjukicMiroslav over here: RouterTest

FB9148980

The behaviour is slightly different between Xcode 12 & 13 but doesn't fully work in either.

The core issue seems to be that NavigationLink upon creation doesn't bother visiting the source of truth.

This has a sequence of pages: A => B => C => D. The goal is to directly jump to D (usually w/o animation, but depends).
The truth which link is active is stored in an observable object. This is then bound to the NavigationLink isActive.

What happens? Seems to depends on the SwiftUI version and the moon phase.

• sometimes it jumps to just B and stays there. When pressing "next", it jumps to D, but then pops back to C, then B.
• SwiftUI 3 sometimes crashes with an Env Object not being bound, this can be fixed by explicitly passing it along (in the destination view, .environmentObject(navState).
• if this is done, pressing "go to d", jumps to B, then C, then D, then pops to C, and then pops to B

Someone suggested adding:

NavigationView {
   ...
}
.navigationViewStyle(StackNavigationViewStyle())

but that doesn't help. In a 14.5 simulator it still just jumps to B.

My FB# on the matter: FB9197698