How can I make an MVC POST return me to the previous page?

Question

I have the following action which is called from a screen with a list of records.

    [HttpPost]
    //[Authorize(Roles = \"admin\")]
    public ActionResul         


        

Answer 1

Instead of a redirection,

[HttpGet]
public ActionResult Index()
{
    /// preform any processing necessary for your index page on GET
    return View("Index");
}

[HttpPost]
public ActionResuit Edit(EditViewModel itemView)
{
  if (ModelState.IsValid)
  {
    /// do whatever you want with your model...
  }

  // return the contents as they'd be rendered by the Index action
  return Index(); 
}

Note that with this method the URL in the browser will still display the Edit url (like /area_name/edit), but you can fix that by:

1. Using a redirect (which you've said you don't want to do)
2. Using JavaScript to update the URL, or use history.back() as @AlanStephens suggested
3. Probably other methods that don't immediately come to mind.

However, I'd question whether this is really the best approach. Typically, users expect different URLs to do different things.

Or, if I understand you correctly and the edit action is being called from the Index page,

[HttpGet]
public ActionResult Index()
{
  return View();
}

[HttpPost] /// from a form on Index
public ActionResult Index(EditViewModel model)
{
  if (ModelState.IsValid)
  {
    ////
  }
  return View();
}

and just take the /Edit out of play entirely. Again, I don't really care for this approach.