We Keep Coding

If Route doesn't exist -> go to other route using its default action?

So I'm having a little problem here with routing.
There are two parts to this web application:
  1. Brochure / Display Website
  2. Internal Site / Client Application
We wanted a way to release changes for the brochure without having to do a whole release of said Web application.
Visiting existing named views will take the user to a brochure page, however if it doesn't exist, it will act like they are a client and will redirect them to their company's login screen.
Global.asax:
//if view doesnt exist then url is a client and should be redirected
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Brochure",
url: "{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "brochure", action = "Brochure", id = "Index" },
namespaces: new[] { "Web.Areas.Brochure.Controllers" }
);
//This is home page
routes.MapRoute(
name: "HomeDefault",
url: "{client}/{action}",
defaults: new { controller = "home", action = "index" },
namespaces: new string[] { "Web.Controllers" }
);
Controller:
/// <summary> Check if the view exists in our brochure list </summary>
private bool ViewExists(string name) {
ViewEngineResult result = ViewEngines.Engines.FindView(ControllerContext, name, null);
return (result.View != null);
}
/// <summary> Generic action result routing for all pages.
/// If the view doesn't exist in the brochure area, then redirect to interal web
/// This way, even when we add new pages to the brochure, there is no need to re-compile & release the whole Web project. </summary>
public ActionResult Brochure(string id) {
if (ViewExists(id)) {
return View(id);
}
return RedirectToRoute("HomeDefault", new { client = id });
}
This code works fine up until we log in and go to the landing page. It seems to keep the Brochure action in the route and doesn't want to go to the subsequent controller which results in a 500 error.
e.g. 'domain/client/Brochure' when it needs to be: 'domain/client/Index'
Things tried but not worked:
Changing RedirectToRoute() to a RedirectToAction() - this results in a
finite loop of going back to the ActionResult Brochure(). So
changing controllers through that didn't work.
Create an ActionResult called Brochure() inside the 'HomeController'. It
doesn't even get hit.
Passed in namespaces for RedirectToRoute() as an attribute. I knew this would probably not work, but it was worth a try.
So the question is:
How can I get the route to act properly?

If you can restrict id to some subset of all values you can add that constraints to route (i.e. numbers only) to let default handle the rest.
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Brochure",
url: "{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "brochure", action = "Brochure", id = "Index" },
namespaces: new[] { "Web.Areas.Brochure.Controllers" }
constraints : new { category = #"\d+"}
);
If you can't statically determine restrictions - automatically redirecting in your BrochureController similar to your current code would work. The only problem with sample in the question is it hits the same route again and goes into infinite redirect loop - redirect to Url that does not match first rule:
// may need to remove defaults from second route
return RedirectToRoute("HomeDefault", new { client = id, action = "index" });
If standard constraints do not work and you must keep single segment in url - use custom constraints - implement IRouteConstraint and use it in first route. See Creating custom constraints.

There are several issues with your configuration. I can explain what is wrong with it, but I am not sure I can set you on the right track because you didn't provide the all of the URLs (at least not all of them from what I can tell).
Issues
Your Brouchure route, which has 1 optional URL segment named {id}, will match any URL that is 0 or 1 segments (such as / and /client). The fact that it matches your home page (and you have another route that is named HomeDefault that will never be given the chance to match the home page) leads me to believe this wasn't intended. You can make the {id} value required by removing the default value id = "Index".
The Brouchure route has a namespace that indicates it is probably in an Area. To properly register the area, you have to make the last line of that route ).DataTokens["area"] = "Brochure"; or alternatively put it into the /Areas/Brouchure/AreaRegistration.cs file, which will do that for you.
The only way to get to the HomeDefault route is to supply a 2 segment URL (such as /client/Index, which will take you to the Index method on the HomeController). The example URLs you have provided have 3 segments. Neither of the routes you have provided will match a URL with 3 segments, so if these URLs are not getting 404 errors they are obviously matching a route that you haven't provided in your question. In other words, you are looking for the problem in the wrong place.
If you provide your entire route configuration including all Area routes and AttributeRouting routes (including the line that registers them), as well as a complete description of what URL should go to what action method, I am sure you will get more helpful answers.
So the question is:
How can I get the route to act properly?
Unknown. Until you describe what properly is.
Related: Why map special routes first before common routes in asp.net mvc?

Two ways I could have solved this issue:
Way 1
I reviewed the redirect and just passed in an action in order to get a route that has 2 segments in the url. i.e. client/Index. The Index action now handles logins - going past a custom controller.
public class HomeController : CustomController
public ActionResult Brochure(string id, string action) {
if (ViewExists(id)) {
return View(id);
}
return RedirectToAction("Index", "Home", new { client = id, action = "Index" });
}
Way 2
(from #Alexei_Levenkov)
Create a custom Route constraint so the route will be ignored if the view cannot be found.
namespace Web.Contraints {
public class BrochureConstraint : IRouteConstraint {
public bool Match(HttpContextBase httpContext, Route route, string parameterName, RouteValueDictionary values, RouteDirection routeDirection) {
//Create our 'fake' controllerContext as we cannot access ControllerContext here
HttpContextWrapper context = new HttpContextWrapper(HttpContext.Current);
RouteData routeData = new RouteData();
routeData.Values.Add("controller", "brochure");
ControllerContext controllerContext = new ControllerContext(new RequestContext(context, routeData), new BrochureController());
//Check if our view exists in the folder -> if so the route is valid - return true
ViewEngineResult result = ViewEngines.Engines.FindView(controllerContext, "~/Areas/Brochure/Views/Brochure/" + values["id"] + ".cshtml", null);
return result.View != null;
}
}
}
namespace Web {
public class MvcApplication : System.Web.HttpApplication {
//If view doesnt exist then url is a client so use the 'HomeDefault' route below
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Brochure",
url: "{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "brochure", action = "Brochure", id = "Index" },
namespaces: new[] { "Web.Areas.Brochure.Controllers" },
constraints: new { isBrochure = new BrochureConstraint() }
);
//This is home page for client
routes.MapRoute(
name: "HomeDefault",
url: "{client}/{action}",
defaults: new { controller = "home", action = "index" },
namespaces: new string[] { "Web.Controllers" }
);
}
}
I hope this helps someone else out there.

How to fix a 404 with routes in ASP.NET MVC?

I'm having a problem trying to get routing to work with ASP.NET MVC 3.0. I have the following routes declared:
public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{
routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");
routes.MapRoute(
"Default",
"{controller}/{action}/{id}",
new { controller = "Home", action = "RsvpForm", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
routes.MapRoute(
"TestRoute",
"{id}",
new { controller = "Product", action = "Index3", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
routes.MapRoute(
"TestRoute2",
"{action}",
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
}
When I visit:
http://localhost
The site works correctly, and it appears to hit Default route.
When I visit:
http://localhost/1
I get a 404:
Server Error in '/' Application.
The resource cannot be found.
Description: HTTP 404. The resource you are looking for (or one of its dependencies) could have been removed, had its name changed, or is
temporarily unavailable. Please review the following URL and make
sure that it is spelled correctly.
Requested URL: /1
Here are the actions those routes correspond to:
public ActionResult Index3(int? id)
{
Product myProduct = new Product
{
ProductID = 1,
Name = "Product 1 - Index 3",
Description = "A boat for one person",
Category = "Watersports",
Price = 275M
};
Product myProduct2 = new Product
{
ProductID = 2,
Name = "Product 2 - Index 3",
Description = "A boat for one person",
Category = "Watersports",
Price = 275M
};
ViewBag.ProcessingTime = DateTime.Now.ToShortTimeString();
if (id == 1)
return View("index", myProduct);
else
return View("index", myProduct2);
}
How do I structure my routes so that all three action methods are hit correctly?

ASP.NET MVC Routing evaluates routes from top to bottom. So if two routes match, the first one it hits (the one closer to the 'top' of the RegisterRoutes method) will take precedence over the subsequent one.
With that in mind, you need to do two things to fix your problem:
Your default route should be at the bottom.
Your routes need to have constraints on them if they contain the same number of segments:
What's the difference between:
example.com/1
and
example.com/index
To the parser, they contain the same number of segments, and there's no differentiator, so it's going to hit the first route in the list that matches.
To fix that, you should make sure the routes that use ProductIds take constraints:
routes.MapRoute(
"TestRoute",
"{id}",
new { controller = "Product", action = "Index3", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
new { id = #"\d+" } //one or more digits only, no alphabetical characters
);
There are other issues with your set up, but those are two things that come to mind right off the bat.

Your routes MapRoute Default should be the last.
routes.MapRoute(
"Default",
"{controller}/{action}/{id}",
new { controller = "Home", action = "RsvpForm", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);

Push the most generic route to the last of the MapRoute call chain.
Try this:
public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{
routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");
routes.MapRoute(
"TestRoute",
"{id}",
new { controller = "Product", action = "Index3", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
routes.MapRoute(
"Default", // Route name
"{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "Home", action = "RsvpForm", id = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults
//new { controller = "Product", action = "Index2", id = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults
);
routes.MapRoute(
"TestRoute2",
"{action}",
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
}

Move your Default route to the end, Default route should be the last route to define because it acts as a catch all route

In my case, the answer for the same problem was a matter of needing to "include in project" the relevant controllers and views instead of incorrect routing rules.
When mine were created, they weren't automatically included for some reason. This problem was revealed after I closed and re-opened the solution.
{+1 hate} awarded to Visual Studio for its faulty hyper-automation sending me digging through Web.Config files, trying to tack on extensions, and even trying (and failing) to whip up a decent ErrorController.

Why is the wrong route being used?

I am trying to do what SO does for its Question controller.
/Posts/{id}/{title} when viewing a post (action name not shown)
/Posts/New when you are posting something new.
/Posts/Delete/10 etc....
I have two routes set up (well, one if you don't count the default). What appears to be happening is all actions in the Post controller are being routed through the first one.
What is that? I obviously have it wrong, but I can't figure this out.
routes.MapRoute("ViewPosts",
"Posts/{postid}/{title}",
new { controller = "Posts", action = "View", postid = "", title = "" });
routes.MapRoute(
"Default", // Route name
"{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults
);

The first route handles all your requests which starts from /Posts.
You need to use constraints to allow {postid} be only number:
routes.MapRoute("ViewPosts",
"Posts/{postid}/{title}",
new { controller = "Posts", action = "View", postid = "", title = "" },
new { postid= #"\d+" });
In this case only if numeric Id is provided this route will handle it, otherwise "Default" route will handle.

All routes are going through the first because you have not specified that the postid field can only be numeric, or defined an earlier route that will catch /Posts/New. It is passing New as the postid with the View action.
You can add this route definition before the ones you have now:
routes.MapRoute("NewPost",
"Posts/New",
new{controller="Posts", action="New"});
Or whatever the appropriate controller/action would be.

ASP.NET MVC 2 Routing with additional consistent parameters (not just controller & action)

Currently, I have URLs that look like this:
http://www.example.com/user/create
http://www.example.com/user/edit/1
But now, I have to support multiple organizations and their users. I need to have something like this:
http://www.example.com/org-name/user/create
http://www.example.com/org-name/user/edit/1
I was having trouble getting the routes to work just perfectly, so I had to add a token to the beginning of the organization name so that routing wouldn't confuse it with a controller/action pair. Not a huge deal but my URLs look like this now:
http://www.example.com/o/org-name/user/create
http://www.example.com/o/org-name/user/edit/1
That's fine. I can live with that.
Here's where I'm running into trouble:
When I generate URLs once I have an organization selected, it's not persisting the organization name. So when I'm here:
http://www.example.com/o/org-name
...and I use Url.Action("User", "Create") to generate a URL, it outputs:
/user/create
...rather than what I want:
/o/org-name/user/create
This is what my routes look like (in order):
routes.MapRouteLowercase(
"DefaultOrganization",
"{token}/{organization}/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
new { id = UrlParameter.Optional },
new { token = "o" }
);
routes.MapRouteLowercase(
"OrganizationDashboard",
"{token}/{organization}/{controller}",
new { controller = "Organization", action = "Dashboard" },
new { token = "o" }
);
routes.MapRouteLowercase(
"DefaultSansOrganization",
"{controller}/{action}/{id}",
new { controller = "Core", action="Dashboard", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
It's similar to this question ASP.NET MVC Custom Routing Long Custom Route not Clicking in my Head.
I have a feeling this is going to end up being obvious but it's Friday and it's not happening right now.
EDIT:
Womp's suggested worked but would this be the best way to automate this?
public static string ActionPrepend(this UrlHelper helper, string actionName, string controllerName)
{
string currentUrl = helper.RequestContext.RouteData.Values["url"] as string;
string actionUrl = string.Empty;
if (currentUrl != null)
{
Uri url = new Uri(currentUrl);
if (url.Segments.Length > 2 && url.Segments[1] == "o/")
actionUrl = string.Format("{0}{1}{2}{3}", url.Segments[0], url.Segments[1], url.Segments[2],
helper.Action(actionName, controllerName));
}
if(string.IsNullOrEmpty(actionUrl))
actionUrl = helper.Action(actionName, controllerName);
return actionUrl;
}
EDIT:
Fixed my routes to work rather than hacking it together. The final solution didn't need the stupid {token} in the URL. Maybe this'll help someone else:
routes.MapRouteLowercase(
"Organization",
"{organization}/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
new { controller = "Organization", action = "Dashboard", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
new { organization = #"^(?!User|Account|Report).*$" }
);
routes.MapRouteLowercase(
"Default",
"{controller}/{action}/{id}",
new { controller = "Core", action = "Dashboard", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);

Url.Action uses route values to generate the actual URL's by querying the virtual path provider and attempting to match the most specific route. In the form that you are using, you are supplying values for the controller and the action, which is as deep as most simple websites go, hence the convenient form of the method. When Url.Action queries the routing system, it only has a "controller" and an "action" segment to match.
If you give the method the rest of the routing information it needs, it will properly match the route that you desire, and will return the correct URL. Try this:
Url.Action("User", "Create", new { token = "o", organization = "organization" })

How do I make this ASP.NET MVC Route for a twitter-style URL work?

trying to map the following style of route: http://site.com/username in the same way that you can do http://www.twitter.com/user
My initial solution was to have these routes:
//site.com/rathboma - maps to user details for rathboma
routes.MapRoute("Users", "{id}", new { controller = "Users", action = "Details" });
routes.MapRoute(
"Default", // Route name
"{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = "oneday" } // Parameter defaults
);
And that was working fine, until I tried to do the following in my 'Links' controller:
public ActionResult Details(string id)
{
int newId;
if (!int.TryParse(id, out newId))
return RedirectToAction("Index");
WebLink results = Service.GetWebLink(newId, 5);
if (results == null)
return RedirectToAction("Index");
return View(results);
}
These RedirectToAction methods try and return the browser to http://site.com/Users (I do have a users controller) instead of directing to http://site.com/Links/index
Why is this is happening?
How should I be organizing my routes to make this work properly?
I'm happy sacrificing http://site.com/links and moving to http://site.com/links/index if I have to. But how would I enforce that?
Thanks to all for any help
EDIT:
I know what's causing this, it's trying to redirect to http://site.com/links (the index page), but links is being picked up as a username and redirecting to /users/details, when it can't find the user 'links' it tries to redirect to the UsersController Index action which maps to /users, and the cycle continues ('users' is not a user it can find so redirects infinately).
So I guess My sub-question is: how to I make mvc always use /links/index instead of just using /links for the index page?

Try adding this route before your Users route:
routes.MapRoute("Links",
"{controller}/{id}",
new { controller = "Links", action = "Details" });
This should then work for
http://mysite.com/Links/id
&
http://mysite.com/username

I believe changing RedirectToAction("Index"); to RedirectToAction("Index", "Links"); in your Links controller should solve the issue without having to change your routes.
The problem is you have two very greedy routes. What I'd do is to break apart the default route to less greedy routes like this :
routes.MapRoute("Links",
"Links/{id}",
new { controller = "Links", action = "Index" });
routes.MapRoute("Users",
"{id}",
new { controller = "Users", action = "Details" });
routes.MapRoute("Default",
"",
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index" });
Causing the urls to be like the following :
site.com/links/5 - hits the Links controller
site.com/name - hits the Users controller
site.com/ - hits the home controller