Django Redirect to previous view

Question

I have a button on page x and page y that redirects to page z. On page z, I have a form that needs filling out. Upon saving, I want to redirect to page x or y (whichever one I was on initially).

Normally, you use "redirect" in the view, and specify the page you want to redirect to. But what would you do in a case like this?

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Answer 1

You can use GET parameters to track from which page you arrived to page z. So when you are arriving normally to page z we remember from which page we came. When you are processing the form on page z, we use that previously saved information to redirect. So:

The button/link on page y should include a parameter whose value is the current URL:

<a href="/page_z/?from={{ request.path|urlencode }}" />go to form</a>

Then in page_z's view you can pass this onto the template:

def page_z_view(self, request):
    ...
    return render_to_response('mytemplate.html', { 'from' : request.GET.get('from', None) })

and in your form template:

<form action="{% if from %}?next={{ from }}{% endif %}" />
...

So now the form - when submitted - will pass on a next parameter that indicates where to return to once the form is successfully submitted. We need to revist the view to perform this:

def page_z_view(self, request):
    ...
    if request.method == 'POST':
        # Do all the form stuff
        next = request.GET.get('next', None)
        if next:
            return redirect(next)
    return render_to_response('mytemplate.html', { 'from' : request.GET.get('from', None)}