Rails 4 - What is the difference between request.original_fullpath and request.fullpath

Question

I need to store user search queries in our db for tracking search history. I know that request.original_url will give me the query string as an absolute url.

http://www.example.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&keywords=cars&view=grid

I would prefer storing the relative url path. With that said, for a relative url with all params what is the difference between request.original_fullpath and request.fullpath? They seem to be the same thing?

request.original_fullpath

/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&keywords=cars&view=grid

request.fullpath

/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&keywords=cars&view=grid

Answer 1

I'd like to add original_fullpath ignores redirects, while fullpath includes them, for example:

# some_spec.rb
describe 'collections' do
  before do
    get '/collections'
  end
  context 'user is not signed in' do
    it 'should redirect to /unauthenticated' do
      expect(request.original_fullpath).to eq '/collections'
      expect(request.fullpath).to eq '/unauthenticated'
    end
  end
end

Answer 2

original_fullpath returns a String with the last requested path including their params.

fullpath returns the String full path including params of the last URL requested.

The difference between original_fullpath and fullpath is that, original_fullpath method doesn’t include parameters that weren’t in the original url (i.e. parameters that were sent via POST instead of GET).