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Asp.net Mvc Route By Only Slug

I'm using ASP.NET MVC 4 with C#. I'm using areas and it's named like "Admin"
Here is my route config;
public static class RouteConfig
{
public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{
routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");
routes.MapRoute(name: "PageBySlug",
url: "{slug}",
defaults: new {controller = "Home", action = "RenderPage"},
constraints: new {slug = ".+"});
routes.MapRoute(name: "Default",
url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new {controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional},
namespaces: new[] { "Web.Frontend.Controllers.Controllers" });
}
}
I generated frontend page links like; "products/apple-iphone"
So I want to call them like this.
But the error is: The code can't get the controller / action method.
I used frontend page links like;
#Html.ActionLink(linkItem.Title, "RenderPage", routeValues: new {controller = "Home", slug = linkItem.PageSlug})
#Html.RouteLink(linkItem.Title, routeName: "PageBySlug", routeValues: new { controller = "Home", action = "RenderPage", slug = linkItem.PageSlug })
#linkItem.Title
#linkItem.Title
They are rendering url links like; http://localhost:1231/products/apple-iphone
It's like what I want. But when I click any link, asp.net mvc gives me this error:
Server Error in '/' Application.
The resource cannot be found.
Description: HTTP 404. The resource you are looking for (or one of its dependencies) could have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable. Please review the following URL and make sure that it is spelled correctly.
Requested URL: /products/apple-iphone
Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:4.0.30319; ASP.NET Version:4.6.1069.1
Here is my controller;
namespace Web.Frontend.Controllers
{
public class HomeController : BaseFrontendController
{
public ActionResult Index()
{
return View();
}
public ActionResult RenderPage(string slug)
{
return View();
}
}
}
So how can I catch every link request like this combined slug and turn my coded view ?

The problem is, When you request products/iphone, the routing engine don't know whether you meant the slug "products/iphone" or the controller "products" and action method "iphone".
You can write a custom route constraint to take care of this. This constraint will check whether the slug part of the urls is a valid controller or not, if yes,the controller action will be executed.
public class SlugConstraint : IRouteConstraint
{
public bool Match(HttpContextBase httpContext, Route route, string parameterName,
RouteValueDictionary values, RouteDirection routeDirection)
{
var asm = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
//Get all the controller names
var controllerTypes = (from t in asm.GetExportedTypes()
where typeof(IController).IsAssignableFrom(t)
select t.Name.Replace("Controller", ""));
var slug = values["slug"];
if (slug != null)
{
if (controllerTypes.Any(x => x.Equals(slug.ToString(),
StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)))
{
return false;
}
else
{
var c = slug.ToString().Split('/');
if (c.Any())
{
var firstPart = c[0];
if (controllerTypes.Any(x => x.Equals(firstPart,
StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)))
{
return false;
}
}
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
}
Now use this route constraint when you register your custom route definition for the slug. make sure you use {*slug} in the route pattern. The * indicates it is anything(Ex : "a/b/c")(Variable number of url segments- more like a catch all)
routes.MapRoute(name: "PageBySlug",
url: "{*slug}",
defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "RenderPage" },
constraints: new { slug = new SlugConstraint() }
, namespaces: new string[] { "Web.Frontend.Controllers.Controllers" });
routes.MapRoute(
"Default",
"{controller}/{action}/{id}",
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
, new string[] { "Web.Frontend.Controllers.Controllers" });

you can provide only this type of link
#linkItem.Title
Because Routetable find your route using Route name provided by you. so controller name and action name is not necessary.

Handle Multiple action with same name in MVC

In my project there is an action
public ActionResult Lead(int leadId)
{
return View();
}
and in the View an ActionLink was created like this
#Html.ActionLink("Old Link", "Lead", "Home", new { leadId = 7 }, null)
But after some time, to make clean URL, I have changed the name of parameter of that action
public ActionResult Lead(int id)
{
return View();
}
And ActionLink change accordingly
#Html.ActionLink("New Link", "Lead", "Home", new { id = 5 }, null)
But old link was shared in multiple social network sites. Whenever anyone clicks on that old link, he is redirect to the page www.xyx.com/Home/Lead?leadId=7
But now in my application, no such URL exists.
To handle this problem, I was thinking of overloading, but MVC action doesn't support overloading.
I have created another Action with same name with extra parameter, and redirect to new action, but it doesn't work.
public ActionResult Lead(int leadId, int extra=0)
{
return RedirectToAction("Lead", "Home", new { id = leadId });
}
I have found one link to handle such situation, but It is not working in my case.
ASP.NET MVC ambiguous action methods

One possibility to handle this would be to write a custom route:
public class MyRoute : Route
{
public MyRoute() : base(
"Home/Lead/{id}",
new RouteValueDictionary(new
{
controller = "Home",
action = "Lead",
id = UrlParameter.Optional,
}),
new MvcRouteHandler()
)
{
}
public override RouteData GetRouteData(HttpContextBase httpContext)
{
var rd = base.GetRouteData(httpContext);
if (rd == null)
{
return null;
}
var leadId = httpContext.Request.QueryString["leadid"];
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(leadId))
{
rd.Values["id"] = leadId;
}
return rd;
}
}
that you will register before the default one:
public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{
routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");
routes.Add(new MyRoute());
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Default",
url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
}
and now you could only have a single action:
public ActionResult Lead(int id)
{
return View();
}
Now both the following urls will work as expected:
www.xyx.com/Home/Lead/7
www.xyx.com/Home/Lead?leadId=7

Dynamic Routes from database for ASP.NET MVC CMS

Basically I have a CMS backend I built using ASP.NET MVC and now I'm moving on to the frontend site and need to be able to load pages from my CMS database, based on the route entered.
So if the user enters example.com/students/information, MVC would look in the pages table to see if a page exists that has a permalink that matches students/information, if so it would redirect to the page controller and then load the page data from the database and return it to the view for display.
So far I have tried to have a catch all route, but it only works for two URL segments, so /students/information, but not /students/information/fall. I can't find anything online on how to accomplish this, so I though I would ask here, before I find and open source ASP.NET MVC CMS and dissect the code.
Here is the route configuration I have so far, but I feel there is a better way to do this.
public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{
routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");
// Default route to handle core pages
routes.MapRoute(null,"{controller}/{action}/{id}",
new { action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
new { controller = "Index" }
);
// CMS route to handle routing to the PageController to check the database for the route.
var db = new MvcCMS.Models.MvcCMSContext();
//var page = db.CMSPages.Where(p => p.Permalink == )
routes.MapRoute(
null,
"{*.}",
new { controller = "Page", action = "Index" }
);
}
If anybody can point me in the right direction on how I would go about loading CMS pages from the database, with up to three URL segments, and still be able to load core pages, that have a controller and action predefined.

You can use a constraint to decide whether to override the default routing logic.
public class CmsUrlConstraint : IRouteConstraint
{
public bool Match(HttpContextBase httpContext, Route route, string parameterName, RouteValueDictionary values, RouteDirection routeDirection)
{
var db = new MvcCMS.Models.MvcCMSContext();
if (values[parameterName] != null)
{
var permalink = values[parameterName].ToString();
return db.CMSPages.Any(p => p.Permalink == permalink);
}
return false;
}
}
use it in route definition like,
routes.MapRoute(
name: "CmsRoute",
url: "{*permalink}",
defaults: new {controller = "Page", action = "Index"},
constraints: new { permalink = new CmsUrlConstraint() }
);
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Default",
url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
Now if you have an 'Index' action in 'Page' Controller like,
public ActionResult Index(string permalink)
{
//load the content from db with permalink
//show the content with view
}
all urls will be caught by the first route and be verified by the constraint.
if the permalink exists in db the url will be handled by Index action in Page controller.
if not the constraint will fail and the url will fallback to default route(i dont know if you have any other controllers in the project and how you will decide your 404 logic).
EDIT
To avoid re querying the cms page in the Index action in Page controller, one can use the HttpContext.Items dictionary, like
in the constraint
var db = new MvcCMS.Models.MvcCMSContext();
if (values[parameterName] != null)
{
var permalink = values[parameterName].ToString();
var page = db.CMSPages.Where(p => p.Permalink == permalink).FirstOrDefault();
if(page != null)
{
HttpContext.Items["cmspage"] = page;
return true;
}
return false;
}
return false;
then in the action,
public ActionResult Index(string permalink)
{
var page = HttpContext.Items["cmspage"] as CMSPage;
//show the content with view
}

I use simpler approach that doesn't require any custom router handling.
Simply create a single/global Controller that handles a few optional parameters, then process those parameters as you like:
//Route all traffic through this controller with the base URL being the domain
[Route("")]
[ApiController]
public class ValuesController : ControllerBase
{
//GET api/values
[HttpGet("{a1?}/{a2?}/{a3?}/{a4?}/{a5?}")]
public ActionResult<IEnumerable<string>> Get(string a1 = "", string a2 = "", string a3 = "", string a4 = "", string a5 = "")
{
//Custom logic processing each of the route values
return new string[] { a1, a2, a3, a4, a5 };
}
}
Sample output at example.com/test1/test2/test3
["test1","test2","test3","",""]

Preserve Case in Route Parameters with LowercaseUrls enabled

I am using routes.LowercaseUrls = true; in my MVC 4 application which is working great. However, parameters will also get lowercased, so if I have a route like
routes.MapRoute(
name: "MyController",
url: "foo/{hash}/{action}",
defaults: new { controller = "MyController", action = "Details" }
);
The link generated with
#Html.ActionLink("my link", "Details", new { hash=ViewBag.MyHash })
will have the {hash}-part of the URL lowercased as well, for example if ViewBag.MyHash = "aX3F5U" then the generated link will be /foo/ax3f5u instead of /foo/aX3F5U
Is there a way to force MVC to only lowercase the controller and action parts?
For older versions of MVC, the way to go seemed to be to implement a custom subclass of Route, however I don't know how/where to instantiate it, since the signature of the route constructors is quite different to MapRoute and I'm hoping there to be a simpler way.

I think the solution with a custom subclass of Route will be a good enough and simple, but at the same time a little bit ugly :)
You can add a CustomRoute at RegisterRoute method of RouteConfig.cs. Add the following code instead of routes.MapRoute
var route = new CustomRoute(new Route(
url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new RouteValueDictionary() {
{ "controller", "Home" },
{ "action", "Index" },
{ "id", UrlParameter.Optional }
},
routeHandler: new MvcRouteHandler()
));
routes.Add(route);
Implementaion of particular CustomRoute may look like this:
public class CustomRoute : RouteBase
{
private readonly RouteBase route;
public CustomRoute(RouteBase route)
{
this.route = route;
}
public override VirtualPathData GetVirtualPath(RequestContext requestContext, RouteValueDictionary values)
{
values = new RouteValueDictionary(values.Select(v =>
{
return v.Key.Equals("action") || v.Key.Equals("controller")
? new KeyValuePair<String, Object>(v.Key, (v.Value as String).ToLower())
: v;
}).ToDictionary(v => v.Key, v => v.Value));
return route.GetVirtualPath(requestContext, values);
}
public override RouteData GetRouteData(HttpContextBase httpContext)
{
return route.GetRouteData(httpContext);
}
}
However it's not an optimal implementation. A complete example could use a combination of extensions on RouteCollection and a custom Route child to keep it as close as possible to the original routes.MapRoute(...) syntax:
LowercaseRoute Class:
public class LowercaseRoute : Route
{
public LowercaseRoute(string url, IRouteHandler routeHandler) : base(url, routeHandler) { }
public override VirtualPathData GetVirtualPath(RequestContext requestContext, RouteValueDictionary values)
{
values = new RouteValueDictionary(values.Select(v =>
{
return v.Key.Equals("action") || v.Key.Equals("controller")
? new KeyValuePair<String, Object>(v.Key, (v.Value as String).ToLower())
: v;
}).ToDictionary(v => v.Key, v => v.Value));
return base.GetVirtualPath(requestContext, values);
}
}
RouteCollectionExtensions Class:
public static class RouteCollectionExtensions
{
[SuppressMessage("Microsoft.Design", "CA1054:UriParametersShouldNotBeStrings", MessageId = "2#", Justification = "This is not a regular URL as it may contain special routing characters.")]
public static Route MapLowercaseRoute(this RouteCollection routes, string name, string url)
{
return MapLowercaseRoute(routes, name, url, null /* defaults */, (object)null /* constraints */);
}
[SuppressMessage("Microsoft.Design", "CA1054:UriParametersShouldNotBeStrings", MessageId = "2#", Justification = "This is not a regular URL as it may contain special routing characters.")]
public static Route MapLowercaseRoute(this RouteCollection routes, string name, string url, object defaults)
{
return MapLowercaseRoute(routes, name, url, defaults, (object)null /* constraints */);
}
[SuppressMessage("Microsoft.Design", "CA1054:UriParametersShouldNotBeStrings", MessageId = "2#", Justification = "This is not a regular URL as it may contain special routing characters.")]
public static Route MapLowercaseRoute(this RouteCollection routes, string name, string url, object defaults, object constraints)
{
return MapLowercaseRoute(routes, name, url, defaults, constraints, null /* namespaces */);
}
[SuppressMessage("Microsoft.Design", "CA1054:UriParametersShouldNotBeStrings", MessageId = "2#", Justification = "This is not a regular URL as it may contain special routing characters.")]
public static Route MapLowercaseRoute(this RouteCollection routes, string name, string url, string[] namespaces)
{
return MapLowercaseRoute(routes, name, url, null /* defaults */, null /* constraints */, namespaces);
}
[SuppressMessage("Microsoft.Design", "CA1054:UriParametersShouldNotBeStrings", MessageId = "2#", Justification = "This is not a regular URL as it may contain special routing characters.")]
public static Route MapLowercaseRoute(this RouteCollection routes, string name, string url, object defaults, string[] namespaces)
{
return MapLowercaseRoute(routes, name, url, defaults, null /* constraints */, namespaces);
}
[SuppressMessage("Microsoft.Design", "CA1054:UriParametersShouldNotBeStrings", MessageId = "2#", Justification = "This is not a regular URL as it may contain special routing characters.")]
public static Route MapLowercaseRoute(this RouteCollection routes, string name, string url, object defaults, object constraints, string[] namespaces)
{
if (routes == null)
{
throw new ArgumentNullException("routes");
}
if (url == null)
{
throw new ArgumentNullException("url");
}
Route route = new LowercaseRoute(url, new MvcRouteHandler())
{
Defaults = CreateRouteValueDictionary(defaults),
Constraints = CreateRouteValueDictionary(constraints),
DataTokens = new RouteValueDictionary()
};
if ((namespaces != null) && (namespaces.Length > 0))
{
route.DataTokens["Namespaces"] = namespaces;
}
routes.Add(name, route);
return route;
}
private static RouteValueDictionary CreateRouteValueDictionary(object values)
{
var dictionary = values as IDictionary<string, object>;
if (dictionary != null)
{
return new RouteValueDictionary(dictionary);
}
return new RouteValueDictionary(values);
}
}
You can now use MapLowercaseRoute instead of MapRoute, so
routes.MapRoute(
name: "MyController",
url: "foo/{hash}/{action}",
defaults: new { controller = "MyController", action = "Details" }
);
simply becomes
routes.MapLowercaseRoute(
name: "MyController",
url: "foo/{hash}/{action}",
defaults: new { controller = "MyController", action = "Details" }
);
exposing the desired behaviour.

Here is one simple way to do this,
public class MyRoute : Route
{
public MyRoute(string url, object defaults): base(url, new RouteValueDictionary(defaults), new MvcRouteHandler())
{
}
public override VirtualPathData GetVirtualPath(RequestContext requestContext, RouteValueDictionary values)
{
if (values["action"] != null)
values["action"] = values["action"].ToString().ToLowerInvariant();
if (values["controller"] != null)
values["controller"] = values["controller"].ToString().ToLowerInvariant();
return base.GetVirtualPath(requestContext, values);
}
}
routes.Add("Default",new MyRoute("{controller}/{action}/{id}",
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = MyUrlParameter.Optional }));
See this blog post for detail.

If you look at private RouteCollection.NormalizeVirtualPath method you'll see that it simply uses virtualPath.ToLowerInvariant(). So there is no way to handle that. Even if you create your own route it will be lowercased.
But what you can do is to add hash after '#' sign i.e. "foo/{action}/#{hash}". I haven't
tried, but it should work. Just look at NormalizeVirtualPath implementation.

It's simple as 1.2.3 ,
look at this example
routes.MapRouteLowercase( // changed from routes.MapRoute
"Default",
"{controller}/{action}/{id}",
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
It's simple to download and install it via Nuget, I use it.
PM> Install-Package LowercaseRoutesMVC
http://lowercaseroutesmvc.codeplex.com/

Getting url path from ASP.net MVC route

I have a controller that looks like this:
public class PageController : Controller
{
public ActionResult Render(string url)
{
//this is just for testing!
return Content("url was " + url);
}
}
I'm trying to pass in the value of the url into the controller. For example:
http://www.site.com/products/something/else
Would pass "products/something/else" into my Render action of the PageController.
This is because we are using "products/something/else" as a unique key for a record in the database (legacy system, don't ask)
So, my resultant query would be something along the lines of this:
select * from foo where urlKey = 'products/something/else'
So far I have this in my RegisterRoutes section on Global.asax:
routes.MapRoute("pages", "{*url}", new { controller = "Page", action = "Render", url="/" });
But this isn't working as expected...
By visiting www.site.com/products/something/else, the value passed into the controller is "home/index/0"
The only route defined in RegisterRoutes is that described in the question.

The below class matches every route but you can modify as per your needs.
public class LegacyRoute : RouteBase
{
public override RouteData GetRouteData(HttpContextBase httpContext)
{
RouteData result = null;
string url = httpContext.Request.RawUrl.Substring(1);
result = new RouteData(this, new MvcRouteHandler());
result.Values.Add("controller", "Page");
result.Values.Add("action", "Render");
result.Values.Add("url", url);
return result;
}
public override VirtualPathData GetVirtualPath(RequestContext requestContext, RouteValueDictionary values)
{
return null;
}
}
In Global.asax.cs
routes.Add(new LegacyRoute());

Hope this helps, one of our routes does something similar and this is the code:
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Standard",
url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new { id = UrlParameter.Optional, action = ControllersAndActions.TypicalController.IndexAction, page = 1 },
constraints: new
{
controller = ControllersAndActions.ControllerConstraintExpression
}
);