CakePHP: Flexible redirection for views and controllers

Question

I have views that are called from different views. The customers edit view can be called from the customers list, the customers search, from within an order and so on. Some of this views are simple views other contains forms to add, edit or delete data. After the user has done what he had to to on that form he should be redirected to the calling form or to another form.

Using $this->referer() wouldn't work as some navigations have to go like this:

list order --> edit order --> delete order --> list order.

I would be fine with defining the redirection for every call so I've tried to use query strings and add ?redirectTarget=<wherever> to every link or redirection. For that I've made a controller function

in AppController.php

public function getRedirectTarget() {
    if ($this->request->query('redirectTarget')) {
        return $this->request->query('redirectTarget');
    } else {
        return array(
            'controller' => 'pages',
            'action' => 'home'
        );
    }
}

This works for forms as I can use getRedirectTarget() in my controllers but I cannot access that function from within a view to build a link. (At leas I sholdn't do that Can you call a controller function from a view in CakePHP? ) In the example from the top I have to pass the information from the order list to the edit view to build a link and to the underlying controller for the form action.

Now I have different aproaches in my mind but with none of them I'm realy happy. I'm not shure which way to go.

Is there something in CakePhp I haven't found yet?
using $this->requestAction?
changing everything to forms and buttons and doing all redirections in the controllers?
Is there a way to create a variable for every view?

As this seems to me like a comon requirement and I'm pretty new to CakePHP I'm asking for your advice.

cornelb cornelb · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-02T10:27:59

Using requestAction should be the best way.

In the views, you can have something like

$redirect = $this->requestAction('/mycontroller/requestAction');
$url = $this->Html->link('Continue', $redirect));

CakePHP: Flexible redirection for views and controllers

1 Answers