def get_referer(req, replace_ampersands=False):
    """ Return the referring page of a request.
    Referer (wikipedia): Referer is a common misspelling of the word
    "referrer"; so common, in fact, that it made it into the official
    specification of HTTP. When visiting a webpage, the referer or
    referring page is the URL of the previous webpage from which a link was
    followed.
    @param req: request
    @param replace_ampersands: if 1, replace & by &amp; in url
                               (correct HTML cannot contain & characters alone)
    """
    try:
        referer = req.headers_in['Referer']
        if replace_ampersands == 1:
            return referer.replace('&', '&amp;')
        return referer
    except KeyError:
        return ''
