Getting the last url and determine if it’s a home page or any other pages in Magento

Sometimes it’s useful to know the last url and determine if it is a home page, a category page, a product detail page or any other pages.Here is a function that demonstrates how to get the last url and determine if it is a home page, a category page or a product detail page. This function can be placed in any classes in Magento, feel free to change the return type from string to boolean or anything else that suits your need.

<?php
public function getLastPage()
{
	$lastUrl = Mage::getSingleton('core/session')->getLastUrl();
	if (preg_match("#cms/index/index#", $lastUrl)) {
		return "Last page was:<br>Home page<br/>url: ".$lastUrl;
	}
	elseif(preg_match("#catalog/category/view#", $lastUrl)) {
		return "Last page was:<br>Category page<br/>url: ".$lastUrl;
	}
	elseif (preg_match("#catalog/product/view#", $lastUrl)) {
		return "Last page was:<br>Product detail page<br/>url: ".$lastUrl;
	}
	else
	{
		return "Last page was:<br>Unknown page<br/>url: ".$lastUrl;
	}
}
?>

Here are some quick notes of how to get other urls in Magento’s phtml files or php class files:
Current url

<?php
Mage::helper('core/url')->getCurrentUrl();
?>

Controller route name

<?php
Mage::app()->getFrontController()->getRequest()->getRouteName();
?>

Base url

<?php
Mage::getBaseUrl();
?>

Home url

<?php
Mage::helper('core/url')->getHomeUrl();
?>

Store url

<?php
Mage::getBaseUrl(Mage_Core_Model_Store::URL_TYPE_WEB);
?>

Media url

<?php
Mage::getBaseUrl(Mage_Core_Model_Store::URL_TYPE_MEDIA);
?>