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ASP.NET MVC Page-URL and Controller/Action Routing

I have problems building an ASP.NET MVC page which allows two sorts of routing.
I have a database where all pages are stored with an url-path like: /Site1/Site2/Site3
i tried to use an IRouteConstraint in my first route, to check wether the requested
site is a site from my database (permalink).
In the second case, i want to use the default asp.net mvc {controller}/{action} functionality, for providing simple acces from an *.cshtml.
Now i don't know if this is the best way. Furthermore i have the problem, how to root with the IRouteContraint.
Does anyone have any experiance with this?
I'm using asp.net mvc 5.
Problem solved, final solution:
Adding this two routes:
routes.MapRoute(
"FriendlyUrlRoute",
"{*FriendlyUrl}"
).RouteHandler = new FriendlyUrlRouteHandler();
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Default",
url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "Page", action = "Load", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
namespaces: controllerNamespaces.ToArray()
);
My own Route-Handler:
public class FriendlyUrlRouteHandler : System.Web.Mvc.MvcRouteHandler
{
protected override IHttpHandler GetHttpHandler(System.Web.Routing.RequestContext requestContext)
{
var friendlyUrl = (string)requestContext.RouteData.Values["FriendlyUrl"];
WebPageObject page = null;
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(friendlyUrl))
{
page = PageManager.Singleton.GetPage(friendlyUrl);
}
if (page == null)
{
page = PageManager.Singleton.GetStartPage();
}
// Request valid Controller and Action-Name
string controllerName = String.IsNullOrEmpty(page.ControllerName) ? "Page" : page.ControllerName;
string actionName = String.IsNullOrEmpty(page.ActionName) ? "Load" : page.ActionName;
requestContext.RouteData.Values["controller"] = controllerName;
requestContext.RouteData.Values["action"] = actionName;
requestContext.RouteData.Values["id"] = page;
return base.GetHttpHandler(requestContext);
}
}

You can use attribute routing which is in MVC 5 and combine attribute routing with convention-based routing to check the condition that you want on controller class or action methods.
And you could make the constraint yourself to use it on the action methods like this:
public class ValuesConstraint : IRouteConstraint
{
private readonly string[] validOptions;
public ValuesConstraint(string options)
{
validOptions = options.Split('|');
}
public bool Match(HttpContextBase httpContext, Route route, string parameterName, RouteValueDictionary values, RouteDirection routeDirection)
{
object value;
if (values.TryGetValue(parameterName, out value) && value != null)
{
return validOptions.Contains(value.ToString(), StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase);
}
return false;
}
}
To use attribute routing you just need to call MapMvcAttributeRoutes during configuration and call the normal convention routing afterwards. also you should add your constraint before map the attributes, like the code below:
public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{
routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");
var constraintsResolver = new DefaultInlineConstraintResolver();
constraintsResolver.ConstraintMap.Add("values", typeof(ValuesConstraint));
routes.MapMvcAttributeRoutes(constraintsResolver);
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Default",
url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
}
Now on your controller class you can check the route and decide what to do with different urls like below:
for example: // /mysite/Site1 and /mysite/Site2 but not /mysite/Site3
[Route("mysite/{site:values(Site1|Site2)}")]
public ActionResult Show(string site)
{
return Content("from my database " + site);
}
And you could do all kind of checking just on you controller class as well.
I hope this gives you a bit of clue to achieve the thing that you want.

Add parameter to all Incoming/Outgoing URL's

I'm having trouble adding a URL parameter to every URL generated, or redirected to in an ASP MVC 4 application.
I want to generate an ID, and use this ID at any point throughout the application. Storing the id in session is not an option as a single session may have multiple browser windows/tabs open concurrently (each with a different id)
RouteConfig
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Default",
url: "{controller}/{action}/{customId}",
defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", customid = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
HomeController.cs
public class HomeController : Controller
{
public ActionResult Index()
{
var customId = Guid.NewGuid();
ControllerContext.RequestContext.RouteData.Values.Add("customId", customId);
//How do I get this redirect to add customid to the url?
//E.g. /Home/Start/{customId}
return RedirectToAction("Start");
//I could do this: But I want it this to happen for every URL,
//and I don't want to replicate this code everywhere
//return RedirectToAction("Start", new { customId = customId });
}
public ActionResult Start()
{
object customId;
//Redirect Loop
if (!Request.RequestContext.RouteData.Values.TryGetValue("customId", out customId))
{
//To generate the ID
return RedirectToAction("Index");
}
ViewData["customId"] = Guid.Parse(customId.ToString());
return View();
}
public ActionResult Next()
{
object customId;
//Redirect Loop
if (!Request.RequestContext.RouteData.Values.TryGetValue("customId", out customId))
{
//To generate the ID
return RedirectToAction("Index");
}
ViewData["customId"] = Guid.Parse(customId.ToString());
return View();
}
}
Not only do I want the ID to be automatically inserted into any Redirect results, but when a View is rendered #Url.Action() and #Html.ActionLink() should also add the ID to the generated URL's.
Start.cshtml
#*Both of these should generate an href="~/Home/Next/{customId}"*#
#Html.ActionLink("Go to Next", "Next", "Home")
Go to Next
How do I automatically add an ID to ALL outgoing routes in ASP MVC?

Create an action filter that will add the ID to the route data in the OnActionExecuting method? You can access the controller through the filter context (and the viewbag). As long as your viewbag contains the customId, you should be able to add it to the route data. At least this way you only need to remember to add the attribute on the controller.
OR
Create a base class that inherits from System.Web.Mvc.Controller and implement your own RedirectToAction. Then have all your controllers inherit form MyControllerBase. Something like this.
public class MyControllerBase : Controller
{
public RedirectToRouteResult RedirectToAction<TController>(Expression<Func<TController, object>> actionExpression)
{
var custId = ControllerContext.Controller.ViewBag["customId"];
string controllerName = typeof(TController).GetControllerName();
string actionName = actionExpression.GetActionName();
return RedirectToAction(actionName, controllerName, new {cId = custId});
}
}
PART 2:
Another way I've modified a URL (I knew I had the code somewhere!) on every view, I needed the URL to link from a mobile site to a full browser site and read the mappings from the database. So in my footer, I have the following:
<a id="fullSiteLink" href="<%= ViewData[AppConstants.MainSiteUrl] %>">Visit our Full Browser site</a><br />
I then added a filter to the base controller class and onactionexecuting (before the action),
public void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)
{
var mainSiteUrl = _mobileToMainRedirect.GetMainSiteUrl(filterContext.HttpContext.Request.Url);
filterContext.Controller.ViewData.Add(AppConstants.MainSiteUrl, string.IsNullOrEmpty(mainSiteUrl) ? UrlHelperExtensions.FullBrowserSite(filterContext.HttpContext.Request.Url) : mainSiteUrl);
}

Complete shot in the dark....
You can set up the route so that if a value is not provided, you create the Id. This way, if the value is there, it will use the provided one. Otherwise, it will create one.
Since this is leveraging the routes, you will be able to generate the Id even when using:
#Html.ActionLink("Go to Next", "Next", "Home")
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Default",
url: "{controller}/{action}/{customid}",
defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", customid = Guid.NewGuid() }
);
NOTE: You would replace Guid.NewGuid() with your own Id generator.

How to set up routing so that Index does show?

So I know google can penalize a site if you have the same content on multiple urls... unfortunately, in MVC this is too common i can have example.com/, example.com/Home/ and example.com/Home/Index and all three urls would take me to the same page... so how do I make sure that whenever Index is in the url, that it redirects to the same without the Index and of course the same thing with the Home

Perhaps this little library may be useful for you.
This library is not very convinient in your case, but it should work.
var route = routes.MapRoute(name: "Default",
url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional });
routes.Redirect(r => r.MapRoute("home_index", "/home/index")).To(route);
routes.Redirect(r => r.MapRoute("home", "/home")).To(route);

The way I handle this is for default pages like Index is to simply create an explicit route for only one of them. I.e. "example.com/People" would be the route for People/Index, and there would be no valid page at the url "/example.com/People/Index".
The Home example is unique in that it has potentially three different URLs. Again in this case I'd simply create a route for "example.com" for that Index action, and not support the other two urls. In other words, you would never link to the other forms of the URL, so their absence should never cause a problem.
We use a Nuget package called AttributeRouting to support this. When you specifiy a GET route for a page, it overrides the defaults for MVC.
Using AttributeRouting usually you'd map the index to [GET("")] but for the special case of Home where you also want to also support the root URL that omits the controller name , I think you'd also add an additional attribute with IsAbsoluteUrl:
public class HomeController : BaseController
{
[GET("")]
[GET("", IsAbsoluteUrl = true)]
public ActionResult Index()
{...

So I found a way to do it without any external Library...
In my RouteConfig I had to add these two routes at the top, just below the IgnoreRoute
routes.MapRoute(
"Root",
"Home/",
new { controller = "Redirect", action = "Home" }
);
routes.MapRoute(
"Index",
"{action}/Index",
new { controller = "Redirect", action = "Home" }
);
Then I had to create a new Controller called Redirect and I created a method for each of my other Controllers like this:
public class RedirectController : Controller
{
public ActionResult Home()
{
return RedirectPermanent("~/");
}
public ActionResult News()
{
return RedirectPermanent("~/News/");
}
public ActionResult ContactUs()
{
return RedirectPermanent("~/ContactUs/");
}
// A method for each of my Controllers
}
That's it, now my site looks legit. No more Home, no more Index in my URLs, this of course has the limitation of not being able to accept parameters to any of the Index methods of your Controllers though if it was really necessary, you should be able to tweak this to achieve what you want.
Just an FYI, if you want to pass an argument to your Index Action, then you can add a third route like this:
routes.MapRoute(
name: "ContactUs",
url: "ContactUs/{id}/{action}",
defaults: new { controller = "ContactUs", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
This will create a URL like this: /ContactUs/14

ASP.NET MVC Routing - Custom routes with blogs

I am creating a blog engine, and I need a custom route, like this:
localhost/blogname/posts/1
Where blogname should be handled by a BlogsController, and posts will be an action.
How would I define such a route?

I don't think you need to define {controller} in your Url if you define it as a constraint. I think this should work:
routes.MapRoute("Default",
"{action}/{id}",
new { controller = "Blogs", action = "Posts" },
new { controller = "Blogs"});
It might cause problems with other routes though, I'm not sure. If it doesn't work, David's answer of http://site.com/blogs/posts/id is the best way to go.

This feels like a weird approach. If you use the default routing in ASP.NET MVC, you would need one controller class per blog--not something you can easily create on the fly.
If you use the classname BlogsController, then the default routing would work for URLs of the form:
/Blogs/SomeAction/123
Maybe this is what you're looking for:
public class BlogsController : Controller
{
public ActionResult List()
{
return View(GetPostsOrSomething());
}
public ActionResult Posts(int id)
{
return View(new BlogViewModel(id));
}
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Comment(int id, string comment)
{
// do comment
}
}
And your routing would need to look like this:
routes.MapRoute(
"Blogs", // Route name
"{blog}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "Blogs", action = "List", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
Note
Bear in mind, this would match default style URLs, and everything might be routed to your BlogsController. Maybe you could consider a regular expression for the {blog} part of the pattern:
routes.MapRoute(
"Blogs", // Route name
"{blog}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "Blogs", action = "List", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
new { blog = "(blogname1|blogname2|blogname3|etc)" }
);
But, this isn't very flexible either. Any time you added a blog to your site, this regular expression would require an update. I would probably reconsider your URL structure--something similar to the default style.

Something like this
routes.MapRoute(
"Blogs", // Route name
"{blogname}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "Blog", action = "Posts", id = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults
);
would work, meaning you could have your blog controller like this:
public class BlogController : Controller
{
public ActionResult Posts(string blogname, int id)
{
... get posts based on blog name and id and return view...
}
}
but then if you want a url like localhost/admin/dostuff/1 to go to an admin controller, how will MVC know that you don't just mean a 'blogname' called 'admin'?
You would need to do something like the regex matching that David suggests, or else specifically add a route for any other controllers you have before you add the Blog route
e.g.
routes.MapRoute(
"Admin Controller Routes", // Route name
"admin/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "Admin", id = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults
);
routes.MapRoute(
"Account Controller Routes", // Route name
"account/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "Account", id = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults
);
... etc - one for each controller ...

I found this approach to be best for my needs. Very simple, goal is to have the title of the blog as the parameter but also the URL (I didn't want a ? to set a parameter value, I have been told it is not helping SEO. Goal is MYURL.com/blog/my-blog-title
ASP.NET MVC
add to your RouteConfig.cs file
routes.MapMvcAttributeRoutes();
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Blog",
url: "blog/{title}",
defaults: new { controller = "Blog", action = "GetBlog" },
constraints: new { title = #"[\w\-]*" }
);
Add a Controller and call it Blog and then add the following Action to that Controller
[Route("blog/{title}")]
public ActionResult GetBlog(string title)
{
// do what ever code you need to do here to get the blog from the title and pass a model to the view using return View(MyBlogObject)
return View();
}

Redirect to another controller/Action not registered in route

iam having controller like below which is not registered in routes table
public class InternalController : Controller
{
/*this controller is not registered in routes table*/
public ActionResult Foo()
{
return Content("Text from foo");
}
}
From another controller which is registered in Routes table i want to call/redirect action of previous controller, one which is not registered in routes table.
public class AjaxController : Controller
{
/*this controller is registered in routes table*/
public ActionResult Foo()
{
/*FROM HERE HOW DO I RETURN CONTENTS OF
controller=InternalController, action = Foo
*/
/*
i tried below piece of code but that doesnt seem to work
*/
return RedirectToAction("Foo", "InternalController ");
}
}
Defined Routes (only one item added)
public void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{
routes.MapRoute("Ajax","ajax/{action}",new {
controller="Ajax",
action="Index"
});
}

If you are choosing not to register a route... then you probably have the file/controller in a specific location that will not change.
In that event, just use the "Redirect" method, instead of "RedirectToAction".
For example:
return Redirect("~/Internal/Foo");

Now that you have shown your routes definition, it is obvious that you can never invoke any other controller than AjaxController. You simply forbid them in your routes, so InternalController could never be served. You will have to change your route definition.
Depending on what you want to achieve and how you want your urls to look like you have a couple of possibilities:
Leave the default route
Modify your existing route definition like so:
routes.MapRoute(
"Ajax",
"{controller}/{action}",
new { controller = "Ajax", action = "Index" }
);

You can create RedirectController for redirecting more Url and pages:
public class RedirectController : Controller
{
public ActionResult Index()
{
var rd = this.RouteData.Values;
string controller = rd["controller2"] as string;
string action = rd["action2"] as string;
rd.Remove("controller2");
rd.Remove("action2");
rd.Remove("controller");
rd.Remove("action");
return RedirectToActionPermanent(action, controller, rd);
}
}
And then you can define redirect from old url in routing tables:
routes.MapRoute(
null, // Name
"ajax/foo",
new { controller = "Redirect",
action = "Index",
controller2 = "InternalController",
action2 = "Foo"}
);
This pattern is also useful if you redirect old url to new one. For example:
routes.MapRoute(
null, // Name
"default.aspx", // redirect from old ASP.NET
new { controller = "Redirect",
action = "Index",
controller2 = "Home",
action2 = "Index" }
);