# Return to previous page

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/return-to-previous-page/165604>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [April 15, 2009, 5:18pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/return-to-previous-page/165604 "2009-04-15T17:18:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![kinunt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/7c8e57/32.png) [@kinunt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kinunt)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 5:18pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/return-to-previous-page/165604/1 "2009-04-15T17:18:07Z")

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Is there a ‘rails way’ to allow easy navigation to the previous page or  
should we use parameters and ‘ifs’?  
I’m talking about, for example, a ‘Back’ button that links to differente  
pages depending the previous page.  
Thanks.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kinunt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/7c8e57/32.png) [@kinunt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kinunt)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 9:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/return-to-previous-page/165604/2 "2009-04-15T21:15:07Z")

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On 15 Apr., 17:18, Juan K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
wrote:

> Is there a ‘rails way’ to allow easy navigation to the previous page or  
> should we use parameters and ‘ifs’?  
> I’m talking about, for example, a ‘Back’ button that links to differente  
> pages depending the previous page.

You can easily make a back button like this:

\<%= button\_to “Back”, :back %\>

button\_to will pass the second argument (:back) on to url\_for, and as  
you can see in the documentation ([http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/](http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/)  
ActionView/Helpers/UrlHelper.html#M001564), :back will be translated  
to request.env[“HTTP\_REFERER”] or javascript:history.back() if referer  
is blank. That’s it!

–  
Best regards,  
David K.  
[http://twitter.com/rubyguy](http://twitter.com/rubyguy)