on html.actionlink click go to previous page

Question

Currently in a link

Customer/businessunit/RepresentativeDetails?RepresentativeId=cd3a7263-78f7-41bd-9eb0-12b30bc1059a

I have following code for view

@Html.ActionLink("Back to List", "Index")

which takes me to this link

customer/businessunit/index

but rather that going to index page I want to go to previous page when the actionlink is clicked, which is

Customer/businessunit/BusinessUnitDetails/c4a86253-a287-441e-b83d-71fbb6a588bc

How do I create an actionlink that directs me to previous page? something like @Html.ActionLink("Back to Details", //go to previous page)

Answer 1

Unless you're tracking what the previous page is on the server, why not just use the browser's internal history? In that case there wouldn't be a need for server-side code. You could just use something like this:

<a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="history.go(-1);">Back to Details</a>

Or, separating the code from the markup:

<a href="javascript:void(0);" id="backLink">Back to Details</a>

<script type="text/javascript">
    $(document).on('click', '#backLink', function () {
        history.go(-1);
    });
</script>

This would send the user back to whatever was the last page in their browser history. (Of course, if they reached that page from any other source then it wouldn't take them "back to details" but instead just "back".)

Answer 2

If you still want to use ActionLink you can do something like as suggested by JuanPieterse

@Html.ActionLink("Back to previous page", null, null, null, new { href = Request.UrlReferrer})

You can use action in controller too. See answers to similar question here

Answer 3

Don't use ActionLink for this... just do:

<a href="javascript:history.back()">Back to List</a>

...which will take the user back to wherever they were prior to the current page

Answer 4

If you don't like to use ActionLink or JavaScript, the href="@Request.UrlReferrer" will do the trick:

<div>
    <a href="@Request.UrlReferrer" class="btn btn-default btn-lg" title="Back to list">
        <span class="glyphicon glyphicon-arrow-left" aria-hidden="true"></span>
    </a>
</div>

Answer 5

This is quite a bit after the fact, but I thought I'd contribute. Personally, I would tag my markup elements with a CSS class so I could just reuse the tag and be done with it.

Markup:

<a href="" class="go_back"> Back </a>

Script:

<script type="text/javascript">
    $(function () {
        $('.go_back').click(function (e) {
            e.preventDefault();
            history.go(-1);
        });
    });
</script>