Question

Well it’s not really a problem but I check if the user exist and log them in and redirect to site/members_area, but I don’t want to send the user to a specific page but i want to reload the current controller.
So if I login in index/home I would like to be redirected at index/home, how should I proceed?

in regular php I would put in the action to redirect to current page

<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>

This is the code in the framework

function validate_credentials()
    {       
        $this->load->model('membership_model');
        $query = $this->membership_model->validate();

        if($query) // if the user's credentials validated...
        {
            $data = array(
                'username' => $this->input->post('username'),
                'is_logged_in' => true
            );
            $this->session->set_userdata($data);
            redirect('site/members_area'); //<-- this line here should be dynamic
        }
        else // incorrect username or password
        {
            $this->index();
        }
    }

Answer 1

I solved this problem myself by having a login form in the header that always submits to one login controller, but the catch is that the header login form (which appears on every page) always has a hidden input called redirect which the actual login controller captures…

Here’s the basic set up (make sure the url helper is loaded):

The Header Login Form

<form action="/login" method="post">
    <input type="hidden" name="redirect" value="<?php echo current_url(); ?>" />
    <input type="text" name="username" value=""  />
    <input type="password" name="password" value=""  />
    <input type="submit" name="login" value="Login" id="submit">
</form>

The Login Controller Form

<form id="login" action="" method="post">
    <input type="text" name="username" id="username" value="" />
    <input type="password" name="password" id="password" value=""/>

    <?php if(isset($_POST['redirect'])) : ?>
    <input type="hidden" name="redirect" value="<?php echo $_POST['redirect']; ?>" />
    <?php endif; ?>

    <input type="submit" name="login" id="submit" value="Login" />  
</form>

The best part is you keep setting the redirect on failure and the redirect input only gets set if you’re logging in from somewhere else.

The Controller

function index()
{
    if( ! $this->form_validation->run())
    {
        // do your error handling thing
    }
    else
    {
        // log the user in, then redirect accordingly
        $this->_redirect();
    }   
}

function _redirect()
{
    // Is there a redirect to handle?
    if( ! isset($_POST['redirect']))
    {
        redirect("site/members_area", "location");
        return;
    }

    // Basic check to make sure we aren't redirecting to the login page
    // current_url would be your login controller
    if($_POST['redirect'] === current_url())
    {
        redirect("site/members_area", "location");
        return;
    }

    redirect($_POST['redirect'], "location");
}

What’s happening here is this:

1. User logins on a different page.
2. The login form submits to a single login controller with a hidden input element stating where they are logging in from.
3. The login controller processes the login, then redirects based on the input.
4. On failed login the redirect keeps getting set again, so no matter what, the user will return to the original page.

That’s just a basic example. You can obviously tweak it as needed.