CODEWITHSUNDEEP
asp.net-mvcroutes
Ken Palmer
Ken Palmer

Reputation: 2445

Need to simplify URLs via ASP.NET MVC routing pattern in RouteConfig.cs

I'm trying to simplify the URLs in an application, and am struggling with the route registration. This is an administrative tool. In many cases we have a List view (List.cshtml) and a Details view (Index.cshtml). The pattern that I would like to implement for these URLs are as follows:

http://mysite/person/list (This view shows a list of people)
http://mysite/person/123 (View will show details for a person with an ID of 123)

Formatting the URls that way is more of a nice-to-have feature for polishing the site. I tried several routes, and in RouteConfig here are some of the more recent routes that I've tried.

routes.MapRoute(
    name: "Person",
    url: "Person/{action}/{id}",
    defaults: new { controller = "Person", action = "Index" }
);

routes.MapRoute(
    name: "PersonID",
    url: "Person/{id}",
    defaults: new { controller = "Person", action = "Index" }
);

routes.MapRoute(
    name: "Default",
    url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
    defaults: new { controller = "Dashboard", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);

Now if I remove those custom routes, and just run with the default route, the "mysite/person/list" view works just fine. But when I select a person, the URL ends up being "mysite/person/index/[id]" instead of "mysite/person/[id]". And if I manually remove "index" from that URL and make the path "mysite/person/[id]", a "resource cannot be found" message appears.

In that second route shown, I figured that giving the route a default action would route to the Index page and treat the ID in the URL as an ID, rather than as an action. With the current configuration shown above, if I navigate to the Person/List view I'm routed to the Person/Index view.

There are a few other actions associated with that controller (like JsonResults), which I'll need to handle as well.

What is the correct way to write the routes to support the URLs that I've indicated above? Also, can you recommend a resource that shows multiple examples of route-to-URL comparisons? Thanks for your help!

=== Edit 4/9/2015 at 10:21 AM ===

Based on the answer provided by @stephen-reindl, this is the solution that I implemented. Since we have multiple interfaces with a "Detail" view, I chose a default action of "Detail". This route recognizes a GUID.

// Support URL format of http://mysite/{controller}/{guid}
// Example:  http://mysite/person/474f4357-39b2-45a2-b02b-6be04b2302fe
routes.MapRoute(
    name: "DetailViewWithGuid",
    url: "{controller}/{id}",
    constraints: new { id = @"\b[A-F0-9]{8}(?:-[A-F0-9]{4}){3}-[A-F0-9]{12}\b" },
    defaults: new { action = "Detail", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);

Upvotes: 1

Views: 733

Answers (1)

Stephen Reindl
Stephen Reindl

Reputation: 5819

You can add a constraint that a specific route is only taken into consideration if the constraint is fulfilled: 

routes.MapRoute(
    name: "PersonID",
    url: "Person/{id}",
    constraints: new { id = @"\d+" },
    defaults: new { controller = "Person", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);

In this case this route is only taken if id is a number.

Upvotes: 1

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