Merb authentication question, _message variable

Question

Hey there folks!

Im using merb, and getting weird variable in url after authentication. I figured out that variable contains base64 encoded data, but cannot understand why its appearing there, even if everything works ok. Just curious

It looks like this: http://foo.bar/?_message=....data.... What this variable for and what does it do ?

Answer 1

_message is the way that Merb sends 'flash' messages. I believe that it is being encoded to make it harder to spoof (i.e. insert arbitrary text on your Web page) but to keep the state in the URL