Redirect back to page before login

[wazo]

Hi guys

I want to redirect my members to the page they were on before they logged in or were trying to access

My problem is they are redirected to the login page, when they access a members page and dont know what code to use


How can I do this?

[iktorn]

Before redirecting user to the login page, just save previous location in $_SESSION.

e.g.

in restricted.php:

$_SESSION['last_page'] = 'restricted.php';
header("Location: login.php");
exit; 

somewhere in login.php:

if (isset($_SESSION['last_page'])) {
  header("Location: " . $_SESSION['last_page']);
  exit;
} else {
  header("Location: index.php");
  exit;
} 

[praetor]

The above solution needs that you have a session already started. A more generic method is to have the return page coded in url.

define ('SITE_URL','http://www.yourdomain.com');
 
echo '<a href="login.php?return='.urlencode(SITE_URL.$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']).'">Login</a>';

[spikeZ]

Do you mean if they were browsing a non-specific page and then had to login, return them to THAT page.....

If so you will need to look at $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] which will give you the page they came from. It's not totally foolproof as some hosts dont enable it but it is generally available.

Other than that you could use either of the solutions above and preators looks like the better option. (no offense iktorn and welcome to the forums )

[wazo]

the problem is they don't click on a log link

when they access as page where they need to be a member it redirects them straight to login

[praetor]

Then use cookies. Or when you do the redirect, add the 'return=' parameter .

header('Location: login.php?return='.SITE_URL.$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']);

[wazo]

please read post below

[wazo]

what about if there is a field at the end of the url

like

http://www.notexperienced.co.uk/apply.php?id=22

its only returning

http://www.notexperienced.co.uk/apply.php


any help I would be thankful

[wheeler]

there are many ways to go about this, but in essence, you need to follow these steps.

1. determine if the user is logged in
2. if not logged in, create a session variable (or append the current page as a $_GET variable as suggested
3. use header() to go to the login page
4. once username and password are accepted, check for a redirect with any of the methods above, and use header again to redirect the user to that page.

EDIT: I noticed you may want to include $_GET variables in the redirect. This is possible, you'll just have to take a few extra steps formatting the redirect url. eg.

if (isset($_GET['id'])) $redirect .= '?id='.$_GET['id']; // yes this is dirty code, clean before using 

[praetor]

Just use REQUEST_URI instead

header('Location: login.php?return='.SITE_URL.$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']);

I haven't tested though. It may need urlencode at some point.

[wheeler]

I have a feeling that REQUEST_URI is not entirely reliable, prone to the same problems as HTTP_REFFERER.

I think PHP_SELF and all the others are a safer bet. actually, isn't there a QUERY_STRING to grab all the $_GET variables rather than testing for them before header()?

[praetor]

REQUES_URI is just the URI of your request. The only problem that I know of is only if you have some rewrite rules in apache that change your URL.

[wheeler]

it seems your right, REQUEST_URI will give you the path and the get variables so it seems like a perfect match.