'Back' browser action in Ruby on Rails

Question

Can the 'Back' browser functionality be invoked from a Rails 'Back' link?

Tilendor · Answer 1 · 2009-03-07T00:22:26.617

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Use

<%= link_to 'Back', :back %>

This is specificied in the RDoc here

This generates some Javascript to navigate backward. I've just tested it, and it works.

edited Mar 07 '09 at 00:22

answered Mar 07 '09 at 00:17

Tilendor

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It doesn't work 'exactly' like a Back button. All the inputted form data is cleared. – alamodey Mar 07 '09 at 01:04
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Yeah, I feel like this only really gets most people half way there. If you truly want emulate the back button, then you also want all the previous params intact. – ohhh Sep 11 '15 at 19:50
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This will not use `javascript:history.back()` when `request.referer` is present. – rthbound Oct 27 '15 at 20:43
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If you have this back button on two pages it will cause the user to just go back and forth between those two pages. It doesn't actually traverse through the history. – wuliwong Jul 22 '17 at 18:51
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This can create a nightmare of a user experience in the case of failed form submissions and cases of similar nature that screw up where the user expects the back button to bring them. – karns Oct 30 '20 at 12:27

Sophie Alpert · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-02T17:58:40.413

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In Rails 3 and earlier:

link_to_function "Back", "history.back()"

In Rails 4, this method has been removed. See Andreas's comment.

edited May 02 '15 at 17:58

answered Mar 07 '09 at 00:20

Sophie Alpert

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Be aware that link_to_function is depreciated in Rails 4.1. More info: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14324919/status-of-rails-link-to-function-deprecation – Andreas Oct 27 '13 at 11:08
enjoy a `undefined method 'link_to_function' for #<# – Jay Killeen May 01 '15 at 04:09
I'm using Rails 4.2.5.1 at the moment. I found that I needed to send the Javascript in the options hash, as `onclick: 'history.back()`, rather than in the URL parameter (which didn't work, at least when I tried it with Firefox). – starfry May 24 '16 at 20:04

score 21 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 06 '17 at 15:21

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This is working in Rails 5.1 along with Turbolinks.

link_to 'Back', 'javascript:history.back()'

answered Oct 06 '17 at 15:21

HarlemSquirrel

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score 12 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:54

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In Rails 4.2, I got it to work with this:

<a href="javascript:history.back()">Refine Search</a>

I stole this off of @cpm’s answer, except that link_to("Refine Search", :back) didn’t do the job I wanted while pasting in the generated code <a href="javascript:history.back()">Refine Search</a> did it perfectly.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:54

Community

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answered May 01 '15 at 04:18

Jay Killeen

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Yes, `link_to("Refine Search", :back)` will just save the last action w/o any params and put you back there where as your solution uses js – ohhh Sep 11 '15 at 19:56
@ohhh it doesn't work for me either: undefined method `stringify_keys' for :back:Symbol – facundofarias Oct 19 '15 at 14:19
@facundofarias, that sounds unrelated, what is the exact syntax of your `link_to`? – ohhh Oct 19 '15 at 14:23
@ohhh it was: link_to("Test", :back) – facundofarias Oct 19 '15 at 15:12
@facundofarias, and you def. weren't passing it a block? – ohhh Oct 19 '15 at 16:30

score 11 · Answer 5 · edited May 21 '16 at 11:30

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You can use link_to("Hello", :back) to generate <a href="javascript:history.back()">Hello</a>.

edited May 21 '16 at 11:30

Rory O'Kane

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answered Mar 07 '09 at 00:27

cpm

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[In most cases, it will use the referrer to go back. If there is no referrer, then it will do `javascript:history.back()`.](https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/v6.1.4/actionview/lib/action_view/helpers/url_helper.rb#L33-L58). Checked the code from Rails 3.0 - 6.1. – notapatch Sep 17 '21 at 10:26

Pradeep Agrawal · Answer 6 · 2015-07-30T07:25:18.440

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This will work similarly as browser back button try this

<%= link_to 'Back', 'javascript:history.go(-1);' %>

edited Jul 30 '15 at 07:25

answered Jul 30 '15 at 07:15

Pradeep Agrawal

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score 2 · Answer 7 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:18

Pay attention to this comment from the user rthbound! As he notes, link_to with the symbol :back does not always generate a “real” back event as if the user clicked on their browser’s Back button. It can also be a resubmit of the action that loaded the current view.

The documentation for Rails 4.2.6 says this about link_to and the :back symbol:

Using a :back Symbol instead of an options hash will generate a link to the referrer (a JavaScript back link will be used in place of a referrer if none exists).

score 0 · Answer 8 · edited Sep 17 '21 at 10:00

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Rails <= 4.0

Using

link_to_function "Back", "history.back()"

seems to be exactly like hitting the back button in the browser. All inputted form data is still there when you get back.

edited Sep 17 '21 at 10:00

notapatch

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answered Jan 11 '13 at 17:28

Mark A

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score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Oct 18 '16 at 14:17

If you like me do not want the behaviour of link_to "cancel", :back you could implement a helper method which either links to the records index path or show path. (i.e teams_path or team_path(@team)

module CancelFormButtonHelper
  def cancel_button(record)
    index_path = record.class.to_s.pluralize.downcase + "_path"
    path = record.persisted? ? record : eval(index_path)

    link_to "Cancel", path
  end
end

which can then be used as <%= cancel_button @team %> within a form for example.

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered May 11 '17 at 13:46

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You can use js function window.history.back()

 = link_to 'Back', onclick: "window.history.back();"

answered May 11 '17 at 13:46

Vlad Hilko

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'Back' browser action in Ruby on Rails

10 Answers10

Rails <= 4.0

Linked