Javascript history.back() not working in rails app

Question

Hey I'm calling history.back() on the on-click of a 'back' button in a rails app. But nothing happens. There is history in the browser -- pressing the browser's back button takes me back to the correct page.

If I use history.go(-2) however, the page goes back correctly. So why do I have to tell javascript to go back two pages instead of one?

Any ideas how to debug this?

I tried this in FF and Safari.

Thanks!

--Additional Info:

Ok I played around some more and this works:

<a href='javascript:' onclick='history.back();'>

Originally, the code was:

<a href='#' onclick='history.back();'>

What's the difference? (Note that this used to work before, something has changed which makes the latter link not work)

Answer 1

have you tried adding return false? So:

<a href='#' onclick='history.go(-1);return false;'>

Answer 2

If you use link_to_function it will automatically add return false to the end.

<%= link_to_function "Go back", "history.back()" %>

Answer 3

I'd recommend using <%= link_to :back %>. Read more here: http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/UrlHelper.html#M002142