Question

I have a page whose path is (e.g.) /premises/92 on which I’m displaying “please [log in] or [register] for additional information” if the user is not logged in, and I want devise to return that same /premises/92 page after the user logs in.

I’ve read other posts and I think I understand how devise’s stored_location_for is supposed to work. In theory, I could put something like this in my ApplicationController:

def stored_location_for(resource)
  if (r = session[:return_to])
    session[:return_to] = nil
    r
  else
    super
  end
end

My question is: how / where do I set up session[:return_to]?

I want to set session[:return_to] only if the user clicks on [log in] or [register], but what’s the best way to do that?

• Decorate the links with JavaScript? That could work, but seems heavy-handed.
• Set it in the Premises Controller before rendering the page? That doesn’t seem right: what if the user doesn’t click on the [log in] or [register] links? Then I have session[:return_to] set to some odd value which might trip me up if the user logs in from some other page.
• Add a ?return_to=/premises/92 query string to the [log in] and [register] links, and detect that in the RegistrationsController and SessionsController and use that info to set up session[:return_to]? That seems like it would work, but also heavy-handed.

None of these smell right. What’s the generally accepted technique for setting up state for stored_location_for?

Answer 1

Devise use

session["#{scope}_return_to"]

So you can use session["user_return_to"] if your model for authentication is User.