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Basic Conventional routing asp.net webapi

I have a simple query on ASP.Net Web API Routing. I have the following controller:
public class CustomersController: ApiController
{
public List<SomeClass> Get(string searchTerm)
{
if(String.IsNullOrEmpty(searchTerm))
{
//return complete List
}
else
{
//return list.where (Customer name contains searchTerm)
}
}
}
My routing configuration (Conventional) looks like this:
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(name:"DefaultApi",
routeTemplate:"api/{controller}/{id}"
defaults:new {id = RouteParameter.Optional});
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(name:"CustomersApi",
routeTemplate:"api/{controller}/{searchTerm}"
defaults:new {searchTerm = RouteParameter.Optional});
If I hit the url:
http://localhost:57169/api/Customers/Vi
I get a 404-Not found
If I reverse the order of the routes, it works.
So the question is in the first case, is it matching the first route (DefaultApi)? If not, why is it not trying the second route?

This route template
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(name:"DefaultApi",
routeTemplate:"api/{controller}/{id}",
defaults:new {id = RouteParameter.Optional}
);
match your URL because Id can be any type : string, int etc. So your URL respect this template and this route is chosen.
To make this template more restrcitive and make ASP.Net Web API to go to the next template you need to add to it some constraints by saying something like "Id parameter must be a numeric type for this template". So you add constraints parameter like below:
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(name:"DefaultApi",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
defaults: new {id = RouteParameter.Required}, // <- also here I put Required to make sure that when your user doesn't give searchTerm so this template will not be chosen.
constraints: new {id = #"\d+"} // <- regular expression is used to say that id must be numeric value for this template.
);
So by using this URL http://localhost:57169/api/Customers/Vi the above template will be skipped and the next will be chosen.

MVC RedirectToAction is not working properly

In one of my controllers, I do have a return that looks like this:
return RedirectToAction("AdministerFiles/ViewDataFiles?catid=14");
but when it renders the result to the browser the string becomes this one:
AdministerFiles/AdministerFiles/ViewDataFiles%3fcatid%3d14
how can I solve this ? thanks .

You just need the action as the parameter (along with the route data):
return RedirectToAction("ViewDataFiles", new { catid = 14 });
If you want to specify the controller as well (it defaults to the current controller), then you can do it like this:
return RedirectToAction("ViewDataFiles", "AdministerFiles", new { catid = 14 });

Can't get multiple parameters to controller to work

Here's the jquery from my view:
$("#btnSelect1").click(function () {
var donationTypeID = $(this).closest('p').find('#selectList').val();
var id = parseInt(donationTypeID);
var id2 = $('#person').val();
var persId = parseInt(id2);
// var personName
var route = '/Donation/ContinueDonation/' + id + '?personId =' + persId;
$("#donationSection1").load(route, function () {...});...
Here's the controller method
public ActionResult ContinueDonation(int id, int personId)
{}
Any thoughts on how I can get this to work? Thanks

I actually think the previous answer is not all that right. Your query string is correct if it were hitting the default route established by MVC which matches a URL something like this {controller}/{action}/{id}.
What must really be going on is that you messed with the routes and your query is either not hitting the default route or you changed that.
What I would do is get the RouteDebugger (just get it via nuget) and see which route your query string hits. You could setup a route for any URL you want it to be (sort of the whole point of friendly URLs), so If you want the route to be /ContinueGiving/{id}/{personId} you can do that by adding a route to the beginning of the routes getting added with a definition something like this:
routes.MapRoute(
name: "ContinueDonation",
url: "ContinueGiving/{id}/{personId}",
defaults: new { controller = "Donation", action = "ContinueDonation" },
constraints: new { id = #"\d+", personId = #"\d+" }
);
Any parameters you do not specify will get mapped if the framework can find any matching items in either posted values, the query string, etc.
The constraints make sure this route only gets matched if the parameters passed are numbers.
So the previous answer worked because somehow the route with id didn't match, but that is not really your issue.

You didn't give a key to the id value:
var route = '/Donation/ContinueDonation/?id=' + id + '&personId =' + persId;
BTW, the var persId = parseInt(id2); line is redundant, as every parameter sent with HTTP is a string, so "234" and 234 are exactly the same.

Is it possible to have route multiple parameters in asp.net mvc using maproute

I want a user to be able to access objects (could be JSON or XML) using a restful syntax rather than having to use query strings.
So instead of http://mywebsite.com/objects/get=obj1&get=obj2&get=someotherobject/ they could do something like http://mywebsite.com/objects/obj1/obj2/ and the xml/JSON would be returned. They could list the objects in any order just like you can with query strings.
In asp.net mvc you map a route like so:
routes.MapRoute(
"MyRoute",
"MyController/MyAction/{param}",
new { controller = "MyController", action = "MyAction", param = "" }
);
I would want to do something like:
routes.MapRoute(
"MyRoute",
"MyController/MyAction/{params}",
new { controller = "MyController", action = "MyAction", params = [] }
);
where the params array would contain each get.

Not quite.
You can create a wildcard parameter by mapping {*params}.
This will give you a single string containing all of the parameters, which you can then .Split('/').

You could use a catchall parameter
routes.MapRoute(
"MyRoute",
"MyController/MyAction/{*params}",
new { controller = "MyController", action = "MyAction"}
);
This would pass params as a string that you could split on a / to get an array.

ASP.NET MVC URL Routes

In ASP.NET MVC, is it possible to define routes that can determine which controller to use based on the data type of part of the URL?
For example:
routes.MapRoute("Integer", "{myInteger}", new { controller = "Integer", action = "ProcessInteger", myInteger = "" });
routes.MapRoute("String", "{myString}", new { controller = "String", action = "ProcessString", myString = "" });
Essentially, I want the following URLs to be handled by different controllers even though they have the same number of parts:
mydomain/123
mydomain/ABC
P.S. The above code doesn't work but it's indicative of what I want to acheive.

Yes, if you use constraints:
like so:
routes.MapRoute(
"Integers",
"{myInteger}",
new { controller = "Integer", action = "ProcessInteger"},
new { myInteger = #"\d+" }
);
If you put that route above your string route (that doesn't contain the constraint for #"\d+"), then it'll filter out any routes containing integers, and anything that doesn't have integers will be passed through and your string route will pick it up.
The real trick is that Routes can filter what's coming through based on Regular Expressions, and that's how you can determine what should pick it up.