[angularjs] angularjs getting previous route path

You'll need to couple the event listener to $rootScope in Angular 1.x, but you should probably future proof your code a bit by not storing the value of the previous location on $rootScope. A better place to store the value would be a service:

var app = angular.module('myApp', [])
.service('locationHistoryService', function(){
    return {
        previousLocation: null,

        store: function(location){
            this.previousLocation = location;
        },

        get: function(){
            return this.previousLocation;
        }
})
.run(['$rootScope', 'locationHistoryService', function($location, locationHistoryService){
    $rootScope.$on('$locationChangeSuccess', function(e, newLocation, oldLocation){
        locationHistoryService.store(oldLocation);
    });
}]);