How to implement history.back() in angular.js

I have directive which is site header with back button and I want on click to go back to the previous page. How do I do it in the angular way?

I have tried:

<header class="title">
<a class="back" ng-class="icons"><img src="../media/icons/right_circular.png" ng-click="history.back()" /></a>
<h1>{{title}}</h1>
<a href="/home" class="home" ng-class="icons"><img src="../media/icons/53-house.png" /></a>   
</header>

and this is the directive js:

myApp.directive('siteHeader', function () {
    return {
        restrict: 'E',
        templateUrl: 'partials/siteHeader.html',
        scope: {
            title: '@title',
            icons: '@icons'
        }
    };
});

but nothing happens. I looked in the angular.js API about $location but didn't find anything about back button or history.back().

You need to use a link function in your directive:

link: function(scope, element, attrs) {
     element.on('click', function() {
         $window.history.back();
     });
 }

See jsFiddle.

Angular routes watch the browser's location, so simply using window.history.back() on clicking something would work.

HTML:

<div class="nav-header" ng-click="doTheBack()">Reverse!</div>

JS:

$scope.doTheBack = function() {
  window.history.back();
};

I usually create a global function called '$back' on my app controller, which I usually put on the body tag.

angular.module('myApp').controller('AppCtrl', ['$scope', function($scope) {
  $scope.$back = function() { 
    window.history.back();
  };
}]);

Then anywhere in my app I can just do <a ng-click="$back()">Back</a>

(If you want it to be more testable, inject the $window service into your controller and use $window.history.back()).

Ideally use a simple directive to keep controllers free from redundant $window

app.directive('back', ['$window', function($window) {
        return {
            restrict: 'A',
            link: function (scope, elem, attrs) {
                elem.bind('click', function () {
                    $window.history.back();
                });
            }
        };
    }]);

Use like this:

<button back>Back</button>

Another nice and reusable solution is to create a directive like this:

app.directive( 'backButton', function() {
	return {
		restrict: 'A',
		link: function( scope, element, attrs ) {
			element.on( 'click', function () {
				history.back();
				scope.$apply();
			} );
		}
	};
} );

then just use it like this:

<a href back-button>back</a>

In case it is useful... I was hitting the "10 $digest() iterations reached. Aborting!" error when using $window.history.back(); with IE9 (works fine in other browsers of course).

I got it to work by using:

setTimeout(function() {
  $window.history.back();
},100);

Or you can simply use [tag:javascript] code :

onClick="javascript:history.go(-1);"

Like:

<a class="back" ng-class="icons">
   <img src="../media/icons/right_circular.png" onClick="javascript:history.go(-1);" />
</a>

There was a syntax error. Try this and it should work:

directives.directive('backButton', function(){
    return {
        restrict: 'A',
        link: function(scope, element, attrs) {
            element.bind('click', function () {
                history.back();
                scope.$apply();
            });
        }
    }
});

Angular 4:

/* typescript */
import { Location } from '@angular/common';
// ...

@Component({
  // ...
})
export class MyComponent {

  constructor(private location: Location) { } 

  goBack() {
    this.location.back(); // go back to previous location
  }
}

For me, my problem was I needed to navigate back and then transition to another state. So using $window.history.back() didn't work because for some reason the transition happened before history.back() occured so I had to wrap my transition in a timeout function like so.

$window.history.back();
setTimeout(function() {
  $state.transitionTo("tab.jobs"); }, 100);

This fixed my issue.

In AngularJS2 I found a new way, maybe is just the same thing but in this new version :

import {Router, RouteConfig, ROUTER_DIRECTIVES, Location} from 'angular2/router'; 

(...)

constructor(private _router: Router, private _location: Location) {}

onSubmit() {
    (...)
    self._location.back();
}

After my function, I can see that my application is going to the previous page usgin location from angular2/router.

https://angular.io/docs/ts/latest/api/common/index/Location-class.html