Routing issue with MVC - asp.net-mvc

Question

I'm working with MVC 3 and have an issue. Instead of giving mydomain/mydirectory/item like I expected I get this:
mydomain/mydirectory/list?animal=quack.
Here's the route in the global
//Default route mapping
routes.MapRoute(
"Default", // Route name
"{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
new { controller = #"[^\.]*", action = #"[^\.]*" }
);
Code showing how I'm building the link:
<div id="main-content" title="AnimalBox" style="float:none;">
<% Html.DataList(Model.PriceListAnimals).Columns(7).Item(item =>
{
item.Template(galleryImage =>
{%>
<div style="margin-left:20px; line-height:150%;">
<span><%= Html.ActionLink(galleryImage.AnimalName,"List",new { #animal = galleryImage.AnimalName }) %></span>
</div>
<% });
}).Render(); %>
</div>
Any ideas?

Answer 1

You have to define a route for special case routing like your instance. Since you are passing 'animal' as a parameter, you should create a route to handle that instance. In your global.aspx (above the default route), create something like below:
routes.MapRoute(
"Animal", // A distinct Route name
"{controller}/{action}/{animal}", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "MyDirectory", action = "List"}
);
This will define a route to the MyDirectory controller on the action list which has an animal parameter which is NOT OPTIONAL. Defining routes is what enables you to generate clean URLs from the html helpers and other methods (redirect to action, etc).

Answer 2

The overload for Html.ActionLink is:
Html.ActionLink("linkText", "actionName", "controller", object routeValues, object HtmlAttributes)
From what you've said, mydirectory = controller, and List = action, correct? If so, try:
<%= Html.ActionLink(galleryImage.AnimalName, "List", "mydirectory", new { #id = galleryImage.AnimalName }, null) %>
this should produce:
quack