Question

For the app that I am writing, I am using simple hand made authentication (as described on Railscast.com). Using some code from Ryan Bates’ NiftyGenerators gem, I have an authentication model that has some useful methods for authentication. This module is included into application_controller.rb.

One of the methods that I want to use is called redirect_to_target_or_default. I know this is what I need to redirect a user to the page that they were on once they have authenticated but I don’t know where I should call this method? If someone could give me an idea on how to use this method, I would greatly appreciate it.

ControllerAuthenticaion Module Code

module ControllerAuthentication
  # Makes these methods helper methods in the controller that includes this module.
  def self.included(controller)
    controller.send :helper_method,
      :current_admin, :logged_in?,
      :redirect_to_target_or_default
  end 

  def current_admin
    @current_admin ||= Admin.find(session[:admin_id]) if session[:admin_id]
  end

  def logged_in?
    current_admin
  end

  def login_required
    unless logged_in?
      store_target_location
      redirect_to login_url,
        :alert => "You must first log in before accessing this page."
    end
  end 
  def redirect_to_target_or_default(default, *args)
    redirect_to(session[:return_to] || default, *args)
    session[:return_to] = nil
  end 
  def redirect_to_or_default(target, *args)
    redirect_to(target || default, *args)
  end 
  def store_target_location
    session[:return_to] = request.url
  end
end

Answer 1

Did you run the generator(s) within Ryan’s gem? It should have generated a SessionController (refer to link) for you with also this method in it:

def create
  @session = Session.new(params[:session])
  if @session.save
    flash[:notice] = "Logged in successfully."
    redirect_to_target_or_default(root_url)
  else
    render :action => 'new'
  end
end

I think you can get an idea of how to use it while reading this code. 🙂