How to get the current URL?

Phoenix Forum Questions / Help
1

I’ve read in another post that it may be possible with a router helper - but I couldn’t find an appropriate one, and tbh, I’m still just finding my way around the docs eg not even sure where to find info on conn opt.

Thanks

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2

Here you go:

https://hexdocs.pm/plug/Plug.Conn.html

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3

Oh thanks,

I meant to say, as an aside, I couldn’t find info for the singular ‘opt’, but now relooking at it, it’s a common abbreviation. Gah I’m a noob.

But on the topic - I’ve looked through plug.conn already and wondered if I should use request_path as this is all I need (there is no query path in what I’m trying to get, and as it’s my app, there’s no need to check the host) - and how would I use it?

4

What would you like to do with it?

In a controller it’s accessible via conn.request_path. In a template it’s accessible via @conn.request_path.

Here’s a good example:

It adds class="active" to links that point to the current page.

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5

Thanks,

I’m trying to customise Coherence’s links (the buttons you helped me with recently) in the navbar I’ve made so that on the home page of the app, when a user isn’t signed in, the register ("Need an Account) and signin links are visible - as they current are - but when clicking on the register button that takes the user to /registrations/new - just the signin button is displayed, and when they click the signin button and go to that page - just the register button is displayed.

Here’s the code that does the links (buttons):

if Coherence.logged_in?(conn) do
      current_user = Coherence.current_user(conn)
      [
        content_tag(list_tag, current_user.name),
        content_tag(list_tag,
          button(signout, to: coherence_path(@helpers, :session_path, conn, :delete, current_user), method: :delete, class: signout_class))
      ]
    else
      signin_link = content_tag(list_tag, link(signin, to: coherence_path(@helpers, :session_path, conn, :new), class: button_class), class: list_class)
      if Config.has_option(:registerable) && register do
        [content_tag(list_tag, link(register, to: coherence_path(@helpers, :registration_path, conn, :new), class: button_class), class: list_class), signin_link]
      else
        signin_link
      end
  end

I’m confused by the && register do of if Config.has_option(:registerable) && register do
and have tried to make another if/else so that there’s one for the registration_path and one for the session_path, but I can’t check/match the url correctly so the right one is chosen and button I want displayed shown.

This is the kind of code I’ve tried:

if Config.has_option(:registerable) && conn.request_path === :session_path do

I’ve tried a lot of other approaches, so would love to know how to properly do this as it should help clear some of thinking about how to use elixir and phoenix. Thanks

6

btw. the main question still stays unanswered - as there’s no single method which returns full request uri, you need to build it by yourself by using scheme/host/port/request_path/query_params fields - which is kinda weird

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7

I have opened up an issue in Phoenix. We could certainly introduce current_path and current_url.

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8

shouldn’t request_url live in Plug.Conn?

9

request_url is not the same as current_url. For example, if your server is behind a proxy, the request_url is rather “http://132.54.51.90:8000/foo/bar”, where the host is the internal IP address, and nobody wants that. :slight_smile: So I think something that understands your application configuration is preferrable.

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10

hmm, strange because when we run it behind ELB, conn.host is the actual domain name and not elixir machine ip, so why request_url should work otherwise?

11

Proxies usually set the Host header when they send a request to the backend. Nginx usually has a line proxy_set_header Host $http_host; which sets the right host header for the forwarded requests. Having a request_url in the plug may help other frameworks too :slight_smile:

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12

Sorry to ask this, as it’s great to see discussion about how this can be done in the future or different architectural/server scenarios, but how can I go about doing this now just developing in a locally created app and in the context of the code I’ve posted? I’m hoping your thoughts will clarify how I can re-use/modify it for similar situations and how to write elixir, until a better approach is created in phoenix.

thanks

13

The simplest way is to get the normalized path in your view:

"/" <> Enum.join(@conn.path_info, "/")

The simplest way is to get the request path, which is the path as typed in the browser, not normalized (for example, it may have double slashes - and I am not talking about the guitarist) in your view:

@conn.request_path

And if you want the url from those, you can use the url/1 function:

url(@conn, "/" <> Enum.join(@conn.path_info, "/"))
url(@conn, @conn.request_path)
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14

Thanks, I’ve got it working now!

15

If anyone is trying to do this you have two solutions:

  1. In controller use current_url(conn)
  2. in views because Mockapp.Web.Router.Helpers is imported in YourApp.ex you ca do this in your template:
    <%= url(@conn) %>
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16

Why not having current_path and current_url directly in Plug?

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17

But in case I need URL params keys within request url, there is no any way to get it.
For example:
I need path in this way “/teams/:team_id/user_teams/:id”, but conn.request_path and current_path gives like this “/teams/2/user_teams/1”

18

See Phoenix.Router — Phoenix v1.6.10

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19

Thank You @LostKobrakai, wondering why I couldn’t see this method.