Suppose I want to publish (like in paper catalogs) some "short URLs" that are easy to type/remember, but I want them to redirect to a verbose, SEO-friendly URL. How do I accomplish that with MVC routes?
Example:
http://mysite.com/disney
becomes
http://mysite.com/travel/planning-your-disney-vacation (with "travel" as the Controller)
The things I've tried:
Just setup a route for it. Problem: the URL doesn't change in the browser (it stays "/disney".
Use NuGet package RouteMagic (see Haacked's article). Problem: I get an error: The RouteData must contain an item named 'controller' with a non-empty string value. I think this is because I don't have a static word before my controller ("travel") like he did (with "foo" and "bar")???
Use a redirect module (like Ian Mercer's). Problem: the route matches on my HTML.ActionLinks when creating URLs which I don't want (Haacked mentions this in his article and says that's why he has GetVirtualPath return NULL ...?)
I'm out of ideas, so any would be appreciated!
Thanks!
You could set up a catch-all type route, to direct all /something requests to a specific action and controller, something like:
routes.MapRoute(
"ShortUrls",
"{name}",
new {controller = "ShortUrl", action = "Index", name = UrlParameter.Optional}
);
(depending on how the rest of your routing is set up, you probably don't want to do it exactly like this as it will likely cause you some serious routing headaches - but this works here for the sake of simplicity)
Then just have your action redirect to the desired URL, based on the specified value:
public class ShortUrlController : Controller
{
//
// GET: /ShortUrl/
public ActionResult Index(string name)
{
var urls = new Dictionary<string, string>();
urls.Add("disney", "http://mysite.com/travel/planning-your-disney-vacation");
urls.Add("scuba", "http://mysite.com/travel/planning-your-scuba-vacation");
return Redirect(urls[name]);
}
}
I just faced the same problem.
In my Global:
routes.MapRoute(
"ShortUrls",
"{name}",
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", name = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
In my Home Controller:
public ActionResult Index(string name)
{
return View(name);
}
This way is dynamic, didn't want to have to recompile every time I needed to add a new page.
To shorten a URL you should use URL rewriting technique.
Some tutorials on subject:
url-rewriting-with-urlrewriternet
url-routing-with-asp-net-4
URL rewriting in .Net
Related
This question already has answers here:
Routing in ASP.NET MVC, showing username in URL
(2 answers)
Closed 6 years ago.
Introduction
I am working on demo application where users can register.Users table have "username" field.There is "detail" action in "home" controller accepting parameter of string "username".
Code
public ActionResult Detail (string username)
{
return View();
}
Then url will be
www.example.com/home/Detail?username=someparam
Problem
Can i setup route like that ?
www.example.com/someparam
If its possible, then please let me know. Any kind of help or reference will be appreciated.
Thanks for your time.
That is doable if you change the way your routes are defined. Let's assume that you use dot net 4.5.2
Have a look in RouteConfig under App_Start.
A typical route definition is defined like this :
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Default",
url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
Nothing stops from changing the route to look like this :
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Default",
url: "{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
We are basically hardcoding the controller and action to be a certain value so now you could just have url/paramname and it will hit the hardcoded combination.
This being said I would not do things like this as it's against the way MVC works
MVC routes are url/controller/action. You can skip the action for generic stuff like an Index for example and your URL becomes url/controller. MVC needs to be able to identify which controller you want to hit and which action and it's best to stay within the conventions it has.
Plus, each application will typically have more than one controller, which allows a nice Separation of Concerns. Now you've hardcoded yourself ito having just one controller and action.
What you are suggesting can be done a lot easier in a webforms manner though so maybe you want to look into that.
If you define code like this
[HttpGet, Route("api/detail/{username:string}")]
public ActionResult Detail (string username)
{
return View();
}
Then url will be
www.example.com/api/Detail/someparam
So I guest you define as following, please try with your own risk!
[HttpGet, Route("/{username:string}")]
Url will be:
www.example.com/someparam
I'm rewriting the question, as the answers so far show me that I have not defined it good enough. I'll leave the original question for reference below.
When you set up your routing you can specify defaults for different url/route parts. Let's consider example that VS wizard generates:
routes.MapRoute(
"Default", // Route name
"{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "DefaultPage", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults
In this example if controller is not specified, DefaultPageController will be used and if action is not specified "Index" action will be used.
The urls will generally look like: http://mysite/MyController/MyAction.
If there is no action in Url like this: http://mysite/MyController then the index action will be used.
Now let's assume I have two actions in my controller Index and AnotherAction. The urls that correspond to them are http://mysite/MyController and http://mysite/MyController/AnotherAction respectively. My "Index" action accepts a parameter, id. So If I need to pass a parameter to my Index action, I can do this: http://mysite/MyController/Index/123. Note, that unlike in URL http://mysite/MyController, I have to specify the Index action explicitly. What I want to do is to be able to pass http://mysite/MyController/123 instead of http://mysite/MyController/Index/123. I do not need "Index" in this URL I want the mvc engine to recognize, that when I ask for http://mysite/MyController/123, that 123 is not an action (because I have not defined an action with this name), but a parameter to my default action "Index". How do I set up routing to achieve this?
Below is the original wording of the question.
I have a controller with two methods definded like this
public ActionResult Index()
{
return View();
}
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Index(SomeFormData data)
{
return View();
}
This allows me to process Url like http://website/Page both when the user navigates to this url (GET) and when they subsequently post back the form (POST).
Now, when I process the post back, in some cases I want to redirect the browser to this url:
http://website/Page/123
Where 123 is some integer, and I need a method to process this url in my controller.
How do I set up the routing, so this works? Currently I have "default" routing generated by the wizard like this:
routes.MapRoute(
"Default", // Route name
"{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "DefaultPage", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults
I tried adding another controller method like this:
public ActionResult Index(int id)
{
return View();
}
But this doesn't work as ambiguous action exception is thrown:
The current request for action 'Index'
on controller type 'PageController'
is ambiguous between the following
action methods:
System.Web.Mvc.ActionResult Index() on
type PageController
System.Web.Mvc.ActionResult
Index(Int32) on type PageController
I must add, that I also have other actions in this controller. This would have worked if I didn't.
Here is how this can be resolved:
You can create a route constraint, to indicate to the routing engine, that if you have something in url that looks like a number (123) then this is an action parameter for the default action and if you have something that does not look like a number (AnotherAction) then it's an action.
Consider This code:
routes.MapRoute(
"MyController", "MyController/{productId}",
new {controller="My", action="Index"},
new {productId = #"\d+" });
This route definition will only match numeric values after MyController in http://mysite/MyController/123 so it will not interfere with calling another action on the same controller.
Source: Creating a Route Constraint
If you keep the variable name to remain being ID, you don't need to change anything.
Rename the post one to "PostIndex" and add this attribute:
[ActionName("Index")]
Same question on SO here.
Ok, here's a cut/paste answer for you, if that helps.
public ActionResult Index() {
return View();
}
[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post), ActionName("Index")]
public ActionResult PostIndex(SomeFormData data) {
return View();
}
Oh i got it now. I think It's not possible with default route, You need to map custom routes.
// /MyController/AnotherAction
routes.MapRoute(
null,
"MyController/AnotherAction",
new { controller = "DefaultPage", action = "AnotherAction" }
);
// /MyController
// /MyController/id
routes.MapRoute(
null,
"MyController/{id}",
new { controller = "DefaultPage", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
ps. Default routes like /MyController/id must mapped at last.
I think you want return the same view, but you need understand you are doing two differents things. One is receive post, and another is accessing by get, and another is accessing by get and parameter...
You should do 3 actionresult with different names, and return de same view as View("ThisIsTheResult")
The routing I need is quite simple, I must be missing something there. As code example I put the simpler situation where I can reproduce my behavior.
You have this ActionMethod :
public ActionResult Index(string provider)
{
ViewData["Message"] = provider;
return View("Index");
}
And you have this route :
routes.MapRoute(
null,
"{controller}/{action}/{provider}",
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", provider = "Default" }
); // Parameter defaults
You can call /Home/Index/Custom and provider will take the value "Custom"
What Route would I need if I want the url /?provider=Custom to map the provider to the parameter.
I thought that would just work, because the default controller and the default action would be used, and the provider from the querystring would be used instead of the default one.
but the querystring is just ignored here.
That's a problem in my situation as I have a form using HTTP GET method.
The form action has to be Html.BeginForm(c=>c.Index(null)) which is resolved as / and the value of my form are added in the querystring. (the provider being a dropdown in the form)
So the url built by the form is /?abc=value&cde=value...
UPDATE
The accepted answer below (see the comments) led me to this solution:
routes.MapRoute(
"Search",
"search/",
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index" }
);
routes.MapRoute(
null,
"{controller}/{action}/{provider}",
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", provider = "Default"}
);
And declare the form like so :
Html.BeginRouteForm("Search", FormMethod.Get){
...
}
This way, the form will work with the provider in the QueryString (when I use the named route search) but in all other case, I will use the default route. :)
When I set the provider to urlparameter.optional instead of a static value, I get the behavior that you are looking for. I don't think I can explain fully why this works whereas having a static default value set does not, but give it a try and see if it helps. If it works, you may also want to develop a custom route for your form so you can maintain your default provider in your routes as opposed to doing custom checking in your controllers.
routes.MapRoute( _
"Default", _
"{controller}/{action}/{provider}", _
New With {.controller = "Home", .action = "Index", .provider = UrlParameter.Optional} _
)
UPDATE:
Also, you do not have to have the parameters in your route to pass them to a controller action method. For instance, using the route above, I can have this URL
http://localhost:49705/home/about/default?otherValue=testme
And this controller method
Function About(ByVal provider As String, ByVal otherValue As String) As ActionResult
ViewData("Message") = provider & "|" & otherValue
Return View()
End Function
Which outputs the string default|testme
This URL does the same as above: http://localhost:49705/home/about/?provider=default&otherValue=testme
Maybe I'm not understanding the question, but if you just remove the {provider} from your route, or use the default {id} instead. Then when you set the URL to /?provider=blah, "blah" is assigned to the "provider" parameter.
This is a beginner level question for asp.net MVC
I have the following code in global.asax.cs
public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{
routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");
routes.MapRoute(
"Default", // Route name
"{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = (string)null } // Parameter defaults
);
}
in Homecontroller.cs i have updated the Index method as follows
public ActionResult Index(string id)
{
ViewData["Message"] = "Welcome to ASP.NET MVC1!"+ id;
return View();
}
My understanding is, if I give the url http://localhost/mvc1/default/1 it should work
instead it is throwing up 404 error
any help what is the reason behind this
I'm assuming your application is called "mvc1" and that's the root of your project. If that's the case:
So "default" is the name if your route, not the name of the action. Basically what the routing engine does is look for a controller and action that matches requests coming in. Given the route you have setup, it would break down like this:
http://localhost/MVCApplication1/default/1
(cont) (action)
If certain parts of the route are omitted, it will attempt to fill in the missing values with the defaults you have specified. As you can see, there is no controller named DefaultController in your project, and thus it uses the default you've specified which is Home. It then tries to find an action method called default and fails again, so it uses the default value in your route, which is Index. Finally, you have 2 segments left in your URL, and no route matches that pattern (2 segments after the action), so it can't find the right place to go.
What you need to do is remove one of your segments, and this should work. Routing can be a little tricky, so I would recommend reading up on it.
The URL you're requesting is asking for a controller called "mvc1" and an action called "default" which will receive an id of "1". Since you don't have a controller named "mvc1" (I assume?), you're getting the 404 error.
The defaults for controller and action are only used if controller and action aren't provided. Since you provided controller and action, MVC is looking for them specifically.
How can I get the controller name of a relative Url, using the routes I have defined in Global.asax?
Example:
if I have a route defiend like this:
routes.MapRoute(
"Default", // Route name
"{language}/{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = "", language = "en" }
from the string "~/en/products/list" I want to have products (the controller name). Is there any existing method that already does this?
You should probably add another route like George suggests but if you really just need the controller value derived from the route you can do this in your controller action methods:
var controller = (string)RouteData.Values["controller"];
See Stephen Walther's blog post ASP.NET MVC Tip #13 – Unit Test Your Custom Routes
The project MvcFakes has an old System.Web.Abstractions reference. So you must replace it
with the new one and recomply the project to get MvcFakes.dll.
This is my code:
public string getControllerNameFromUrl()
{
RouteCollection rc = new RouteCollection();
MvcApplication.RegisterRoutes(rc);
System.Web.Routing.RouteData rd = new RouteData();
var context = new FakeHttpContext("\\" + HttpContext.Request.Url.AbsolutePath);
rd = rc.GetRouteData(context);
return rd.Values["action"].ToString();
}
In my code above "MvcApplication" is the class name in the Global.asax.
Good luck !
I'm not sure what you're asking, so if my answer's wrong, it's because I'm guessing at what you want.
You can always add another route to your Global.asax. That's often the easiest way to deal with cases 'outside of the norm'.
If you want to return a list of products, you'll use this route:
routes.MapRoute(
"ProductList",
"{language}/{products}/{action}/",
new { controller = "Products", action = "List", language = "en" });
You can also replace products with the more generic {controller} if more than one type of entity is going to use this route. You should modify it for your needs.
For example, to make this a generic route that you can use to get a list of any product:
routes.MapRoute(
"ProductList",
"{language}/{controller}/{action}/",
new { controller = "Products", action = "List", language = "en" });
What this does is that it creates a route (that you should always place before your Default route) that says, "For whatever the user enters, give me the controller and action they ask for". (Such as /en/Products/List, or /en/Users/List).
To visit that controller, you simply need to navigate to the following: yoursite.com/en/products/list. You can also use the HTMLActionLink to visit the controller.
<%=Html.ActionLink("Product", "List", new { controller = Products }, null ) %>
I'm writing this without my IDE open, so the ActionLink may have an error in it.