Stacking multiple UIViewControllers and presenting the last one in UINavigationController stack - objective-c

Question

Possibly simple request here but I can't find the solution and it is bugging me for days.
I'm building simple options page where users could jump to desired page and I'm using UINavigationController instance to manage hierarchy. My storyboard looks like this:
Viewcontrollers are connected with push segues fired on next button, while I use [self.navigationController popViewControllerAnimated:YES] for previous button. If I connect, for instance, button labeled 2 on 5VC with 2VC through push segue, I get to the second page, but if I want to use previous button I will land to options page or 5VC which is something I don't want. Instead, I would like to be able to use previous button to go to first page, while on second page.
The way I see it, if I am on third page (3VC) and I call options page (5VC) and select button 3, system should stack 1VC-2VC and present 3VC, so I would be able to go to 2VC through [self.navigationController popViewControllerAnimated:YES] request.
I think the solution is somehow connected with setViewControllers:(NSArray *)viewControllers animated:(BOOL)animated, but I don't know the syntax how to make things work.

Answer 1

You have 3 cases
Back to one of ancestors in the middle with push
case 5VC=>2VC, 5VC=>3VC:
NSArray *vcs = self.navigationController.viewControllers;
for(NSInteger i = vcs.count - 2; i > 0; i--) {
// find the target and its parent view controller
// i.e. class of 2VC is ViewController2
if([vcs[i] isKindOfClass:[ViewController2 class]]) {
UIViewController *target = vcs[i];
UIViewController *parent = vcs[i - 1];
// pop to its parent view controller with NO animation
[self.navigationController popToViewController:parent animated:NO];
// push the target from its parent
[self.navigationController pushViewController:target animated:YES];
return;
}
}
Back to the root view controller with push
case 5VC=>1VC:
UIViewController *root = self.navigationController.viewControllers.firstObject;
// reset view controllers stack with self as root.
[self.navigationController setViewControllers:#[self] animated:NO];
// push target from self
[self.navigationController pushViewController:root animated:YES];
// reset navigation stack with target as root.
[self.navigationController setViewControllers:#[root] animated:NO];
Push new VC from one of ancestors
case 5VC=>4VC
NSArray *vcs = self.navigationController.viewControllers;
for(NSInteger i = vcs.count - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
// find the parent view controller
if([vcs[i] isKindOfClass:[ViewController3 class]]) {
UIViewController *parent = vcs[i];
// pop to the parent with NO animation
[self.navigationController popToViewController:parent animated:NO];
// perform segue from the parent
[parent performSegueWithIdentifier:#"push4VC" sender:self];
return;
}
}
On the particular your case(5VC=>4VC), you know 3VC is the self's parent, you can get the parent directly:
NSArray *vcs = self.navigationController.viewControllers;
UIViewController *parent = vcs[vcs.count - 2]; // [vcs.count-1] is self.
[self.navigationController popToViewController:parent animated:NO];
[parent performSegueWithIdentifier:#"push4VC" sender:self];