Question

Using Backbone, is it possible for me to get the name of the current route? I know how to bind to route change events, but I’d like to be able to determine the current route at other times, in between changes.

Answer 1

If you have instantiated a Router in your application, the following line returns the current fragment:

Backbone.history.getFragment();

From the Backbone.js documentation:

”
[…]
History serves as a global router (per frame) to handle hashchange events or pushState, match the appropriate route, and trigger callbacks. You shouldn’t ever have to create one of these yourself — you should use the reference to Backbone.history that will be created for you automatically if you make use of Routers with routes.
[…]”

If you need the name of the function bound to that fragment, you can make something like this inside the scope of your Router:

alert( this.routes[Backbone.history.getFragment()] );

Or like this from outside your router:

alert( myRouter.routes[Backbone.history.getFragment()] );