ASP.NET MVC URL routing doesn't give me pretty URLs

Question

I have set up an ASP.NET MVC project, and everything is working great, but I do have one problem with the routing. My Global.asax looks like this:

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 = "" }  // Parameter defaults
        );
    }

So, nothing out of the ordinary. My problem is that when I link to a controller/action/params with an HTML.ActionLink like so:

<%= Html.ActionLink("My link", "SomeAction", "SomeController", new {param="someParam"})%>

it should generate (at least what makes sense in my head) a link such as: http://www.localhost/SomeController/SomeAction/someParam.

But instead it generates a link like this: http://localhost/SomeController/SomeAction?param=someParam

If i manually make a link that links to the expected result (SomeController/SomeAction/someParam) then the right controller and action are called, but the parameter defined in the action method is always null.

Any ideas?

Dan Fish · Accepted Answer · 2009-03-03 19:40:02Z

5

try adding:

routes.MapRoute(
                    "Default",                                                                                              // Route name
                    "{controller}/{action}/{param}",                                                   // URL with parameters
                    new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", param = "" }  // Parameter defaults
            );

answered Mar 3, 2009 at 19:40

Dan Fish

2,3921 gold badge14 silver badges8 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

Brian Dukes · Accepted Answer · 2009-03-03 19:41:16Z

4

I think that link will only use the default route like you expect if the parameter name is id instead of param. You'll have to create a different route if you want to provide some other parameter there.

answered Mar 3, 2009 at 19:41

Brian Dukes

157k25 gold badges152 silver badges176 bronze badges

2 Comments

Erik Over a year ago

Hmmm, so this means that I have to specify a new routing rule for each new controller action that requires a different set of parameters? This would result a large amount of routing rules for an enterprise application. Isn't there a more dynamic approach than that?

bzlm Over a year ago

If this was really dynamic, wouldn't you lose type safety, parameter safety and testability?

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

ASP.NET MVC URL routing doesn't give me pretty URLs

2 Answers 2

Comments

2 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

Comments

2 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related