asp.net mvc - inconsistent rendering of ActionLink

Question

I have a controller which accepts URLs in the following two formats:

Network/AddOrEdit -> renders a blank form on a page to add a new network object
Network/AddOrEdit/[id] -> renders a page with prepopulated form to edit the network object with ID [id]

Obviously it's the same view being used in each instance - one of my design goals is to use the same view for adding and editing purposes.

The master page contains a link to the add page like this:

@Html.ActionLink("Add", "AddOrEdit", "Network")

Ordinarily this renders correctly as /Network/AddOrEdit.

However, when I am on the edit page (i.e. the current URL is in the format Network/AddOrEdit/[id]), then the Add link renders with that ID on the end - so the add link actually points to the edit page. This is not what I want!

So for some reason MVC seems to be allowing the current ID from the query string to interfere with the rendering of the ActionLink.

Any suggestions what I can do about this? :(

I think this question has been asked before on SO: stackoverflow.com/questions/780643/… — HerbalMart
– HerbalMart, Commented Sep 22, 2011 at 11:27

archil · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-22 12:01:54Z

4

Your guessing is right. MVC routing mechanism may reuse route variables from the current request to generate outgoing route data. That's why the id parameter is populated from the current request. You should explicitely specify id when generating link

@Html.ActionLink("Add", "AddOrEdit", "Network", new { id = String.Empty }, null)

And when routing system sees route with optional id parameter, and route value with string.Empty, it generates link without id in the end

answered Sep 22, 2011 at 12:01

archil

39.6k7 gold badges69 silver badges83 bronze badges

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

1 Comment

David Over a year ago

This solved the problem. Guess I just don't know my ActionLink overloads well enough!

Daryl Teo · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-22 11:35:29Z

2

Tried this myself:

@Html.ActionLink("Add", "AddOrEdit", "Network", new { id = UrlParameter.Optional })

Apparently, this one works too.

@Html.ActionLink("Add", "AddOrEdit", "Network", new { id = String.Empty })

Hopefully this works for you too.

edited Sep 22, 2011 at 11:35

answered Sep 22, 2011 at 11:24

Daryl Teo

5,5251 gold badge34 silver badges42 bronze badges

3 Comments

David Over a year ago

Thanks, but I don't think you've understood the question. I want the link to render WITHOUT an ID on the end.

David Over a year ago

Thanks for coming back on this Daryl, but this didn't work. Bizarrely, it just appended the text 'Length=7' onto the end of the query string.

David Over a year ago

One of those all-important nulls.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

asp.net mvc - inconsistent rendering of ActionLink

2 Answers 2

1 Comment

3 Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

1 Comment

3 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related