Add extra data as part of url and not as parameter

Question

So I've read about routes in MVC and configured according to what's mentioned in other posts.. So my intention is to generate url as below:

http://domain.com/controller/action/id

with this intention I've configured my RoutesConfig.cs as below:

routes.MapRoute(
      name: "AdminMessage",
      url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
      defaults: new { controller = "Admin", action = "Messages", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);

Below is what my Controller looks like

[HttpGet]
public ActionResult Messages(string id)
{
    _model = new AdminViewModel();
    _userName = Convert.ToString(HttpContext.User.Identity.Name);
    ViewBag.Page = "Messages";
    _model = PrepareLayoutModel(_userName, "Messages");
    return View(_model);
}

And I use Url.Action to generate url as below:

<a href="@Url.Action("Messages", "Admin", new RouteValueDictionary(new {message.MessageID}))"></a>

But it always generates Url as http://domainname/controller/action?messageID=SDc@#123#2@, instead I want to generate it as http://domainname/controller/action/SDc@#123#2@. So what is the way I can get this done?

user3559349 · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-06 20:37:29Z

1

It needs to be

@Url.Action("Messages", "Admin", new { ID = message.MessageID })

Which creates an object with a property named ID (which matches your route) as opposed to your current implemenatation which is using an object property named MessageID which does not match your route so its value is added as a query string value

answered Mar 6, 2016 at 20:37

user3559349

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4 Comments

Guruprasad J Rao Over a year ago

Perfect.. Silly mistakes keep on happening.. :(

Guruprasad J Rao Over a year ago

Can I ask one more doubt here? How can I get id parameter in Razor view? I tried with Request.QueryString[0] and Request.QueryString["id"] but both the times it returned null.. Will the last part now will be treated as querystring? How can I get this?

user3559349 Over a year ago

Because you have url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}", then the value is added a a route value, not a query string value. But because the parameter in the method is string id, then that parameter will be the value of message.MessageID (and you can also access route values using HttpContext.Current.Request.RequestContext.RouteData.Values["id"]; but that is unnecessary)

Guruprasad J Rao Over a year ago

Yea.. That's correct.. :) Thanks much for the info.. Have a pleasant time.. :)

Darin Dimitrov · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-06 20:49:11Z

1

Try like this:

<a href="@Url.Action("Messages", "Admin", new { id = message.MessageID })"></a>

or even better use the Html.ActionLink helper that will generate an anchor tag pointing to the desired controller action and passing the id route parameter value:

@Html.ActionLink(
    linkText: "", 
    actionName: "Messages", 
    controllerName: "Admin", 
    routeValues: new { id = message.MessageID }, 
    htmlAttributes: null
)

This being said, if you intend to be passing special characters in the route portion of your urls you should be prepared to suffer. In this case I would simply recommend you using query string parameters which can be more than safely url encoded without you suffering. So basically if you do not control the format of this MessageID parameter and narrow it down to basic alphanumeric characters you more than totally don't want it as part of your route segments.

edited Mar 6, 2016 at 20:49

answered Mar 6, 2016 at 20:37

Darin Dimitrov

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6 Comments

Guruprasad J Rao Over a year ago

Thanks for the extra info @Darin.. I forgot to mention that I cannot use @Html.ActionLink because there are some other elements which comes inside the a tag... Thanks much for time and help.. :)

Guruprasad J Rao Over a year ago

plus 20 in different ways.. ;)

Darin Dimitrov Over a year ago

I can't think of any viable reason against using standard HTML helpers such as Html.ActionLink. Even if you need to put some of your own crap inside the link text you could always have written a custom HTML helper instead of ending with such terrible spaghetti mixture between HTML DOM markup and server side helpers as attributes of thos DOM elements.

Guruprasad J Rao Over a year ago

Well, then I have to look into creating a custom HTML helper as my knowledge on them is very limited.. Definitely I will look into it buddy.. :) Thank you.. :)

Darin Dimitrov Over a year ago

Oh you definitively should look into creating custom HTML helpers. I can hardly believe how people are even using Razor in real world applications without customizing it.

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