How to redirect to the method of a controller after user doing authentication on codeigniter? - codeigniter

Question

I am using the Default Controller to make the user authentication. What I am trying to do is whatever is the page the user request news/add or news/index or themes/all or maps/view, if he is not logged in, he or she will be directed to the log in page and then redirected to the page he wanted to go, not always the same page.

Answer 1

You can your the
CodeIgniter User Agent Library and Session Library to store and use the referring url. The user agent library is basicly accessing the $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] value.
NOTE: from the php.net website:
Not all user agents will set this, and some provide the ability to modify HTTP_REFERER as a feature. In short, it cannot really be trusted.
so this is not a foolproof method.
if ($this->agent->is_referral()) {
$this->session->set_userdata('prev_url', $this->agent->referrer());
}
// later, when login is successful
$prev_url = $this->session->userdata('prev_url');
if( $prev_url ) {
redirect($prev_url);
}

Answer 2

one way is to do it in the constructor of your controller. that way they are redirected before going to the news/add etc.
so for example you create a model called "sentry" and a "getUser()" method to check the browser cookie to see if the user is authorized. if they are not authorized have it return false. if they are authorized have it return $user so then you have it available for your other methods.
function __construct() {
parent::__construct();
$this->load->model( 'sentry' );
if ( ! $this->user = $this->sentry->_getUser() )
{ redirect( '/login/', 'refresh' ); }
}
so then for example you could have $this->user->name etc etc available to any method in the controller. And $this->user will also automatically be available in all the view files of this controller.

Answer 3

I do this by extending my controller and I check in constructor if person is logged in or not, if person is logged in I save to the session current URL, and redirect person to the login page (if same constructor is applied (controller one) I make exception to not save current URL to the session) after logging in I call redirect function to the session variable.
How to extend your controller is done here http://philsturgeon.co.uk/blog/2010/02/CodeIgniter-Base-Classes-Keeping-it-DRY
note that when your controller is extended you use $this->data['variable_sent_to_view'] and you can omit second parameter of $this->load->view()
here is some example code assuming you know how your login controller works
<?php if (!defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');
class MY_Controller extends CI_Controller {
function __construct() {
parent::__construct();
$this->output->enable_profiler(FALSE);
if ($refer = $this->session->flashdata('refer')) {
$this->data['refer_page'] = $refer; // $this->data['refer_page'] is variable that you are interested in
unset($refer);
} else {
$this->data['refer_page'] = base_url(); //default refer_page
}
//check if user is NOT logged in
if (!$logged_in) {
$this->_setRefer(); //this is private function
}
// else dont care about it
}
private function _setRefer() {
$invalid_method = array('search', 'login'); // if method is 'search' or 'login' url will not save in session (it will stay same as was before)
$valid_refer = TRUE;
if (in_array($this->router->method, $invalid_method)) {
$valid_refer = FALSE;
}
if (!(count($_POST) > 0) && $valid_refer === TRUE && !$this->input->is_ajax_request()) {
$this->session->set_flashdata('refer', current_url());
} else {
$this->session->set_flashdata('refer', $this->data['refer_page']);
}
}
}
now in after succesful login redirect to $this->data['refer_page'], but note that login controller must by extended by MY_Controller.
this script also takes care about what happens if user made mistake and inserted wrong password (page will reload but "old" url stays)