Post/Redirect/Get: Redirect to specific route

Question

I have the following scenario:

I have an edit page, which can be called from different pages. These pages could be the detail view for the current entity, or the list view for the entities (with or without a search in the route).

HOW do I cleanly redirect to the original calling page using the MVC framework? Of course I could simply pass the HttpContext.Request.Url value by holding it in my TempData, but that sort of smells, in my eyes (or, err, nose). It's on a lower level than the rest of the code.

Is there a way to get the routevalues for the previous page in a controller context? If I have that, I could store that temporarily and pass that to the redirect.

Answer 1

you can always have a hidden form element telling the controller where to redirect when posting a form. when using a get request, you could use a querystring in a similar way. it might not be the most beautiful solution, but it's quite a lot safer than trusting httpreferrer or other headers that could easily be changed (or ommitted) by the browser.

Answer 2

Do not use TempData when not redirecting. One AJAX request from your edit page, and the TempData will go away.

Tomas is right that a hidden element or query string parameter is the way to go. But make sure you sanitize the value submitted. You don't want to redirect any old site on the web; you need to ensure that the page to which you redirect is part of your sites.