asp.net mvc routing - map actions not controllers

Question

I know it's more of the same (SO has more than 5,600 questions on this), but I've been sitting on this one for a couple of days now so I guess it was the right time to ask a question.

My requirements

I want to have the following routes in my asp.net mvc app:

myapp.com/sigin -> Controller = Account, Action = SignIn
myapp.com/signout -> Controller = Account, Action = SignOut
myapp.com/joe.smith -> Controller = User, Action = Index
myapp.com/joe.smith/following -> Controller = User, Action = Following
myapp.com/joe.smith/tracks -> Controller = Tracks, Action = Index
myapp.com/about -> Controller = About, Action = Index
Any other default route, so that's why I left the standard one there.

My Code

 public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
    {
        routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

        routes.MapRoute(
            name: "About",
            url: "about",
            defaults: new { controller = "About", action = "Index" }
        );

        routes.MapRoute(
            name: "MyTracks",
            url: "{username}/tracks",
            defaults: new { controller = "MyTracks", action = "Index" }
        );

        routes.MapRoute(
            name: "MyTunes",
            url: "{username}/tunes",
            defaults: new { controller = "MyTunes", action = "Index" }
        );

        routes.MapRoute(
            name: "MyProfile",
            url: "{username}",
            defaults: new { controller = "User", action = "Index"},
            constraints: new { username = "" }
         );

        routes.MapRoute(
            name: "Account",
            url: "{action}",
            defaults: new { controller = "Account" }
        );

        routes.MapRoute(
            name: "Default",
            url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
            defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
        );
    }

Issue

Routes number 3 and 4 just don't work as they get mixed up with route 1 and 2. I have tried debugging my code with Phil Haack's routing debugger, but no luck. Any ideas what I am doing wrong?

Chris Pratt · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-06 15:16:20Z

2

The problem is in your last two custom routes. All the routing framework has to work with is just a single token from the URL, and two possible routes to match it with. For example, if you attempt to go to the URL, /signin, how is the routing framework supposed to know there's not a user with username "signin". It's obvious to you, a human, what should happen, but a machine can only do so much.

You need to differentiate the routes in some way. For example, you could do u/{username}. That would be enough to help the routing framework out. Short of that, you'll need to define custom routes for each account action before the user route. For example:

routes.MapRoute(
    name: "AccountSignin",
    url: "signin",
    defaults: new { controller = "Account", action = "Signin" }
);

// etc.

routes.MapRoute(
    name: "MyProfile",
    url: "{username}",
    defaults: new { controller = "User", action = "Index"},
    constraints: new { username = "" }
 );

That way, any of the actual action names will match first.

answered Mar 6, 2015 at 15:16

Chris Pratt

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1 Comment

Andre Gallo Over a year ago

I totally agree with your point on a machine can only do so much, however, I was hoping to have a trick where I wouldn't have to go and manually add all routes to my account controller so I can differentiate from the profile controller. Bottom line, if I want to keep my routes like that I'd have to have a route for each action in accountcontroller and myprofilecontroller.

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