MVC Routing and Areas - how to construct a route to match action on default controller in area?

Question

I've got a simple MVC4 web site containing an area (called "User") containing a Controller called "HomeController".

On this controller there are two action methods: Index and Details:

public class HomeController : Controller
{
    public ActionResult Index()
    {
        return View();
    }

    public ActionResult Details(int id)
    {
        return View();
    }
}

The "UserAreaRegistration.cs" class is as follows:

public class UserAreaRegistration : AreaRegistration
{
    public override string AreaName
    {
        get
        {
            return "User";
        }
    }

    public override void RegisterArea(AreaRegistrationContext context)
    {
        context.MapRoute(
            "User_default",
            "User/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
            new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
            namespaces: new[] { "MvcApplication1.Areas.User.Controllers" }
        );

        context.MapRoute(
            "User_default_no_contoller",
            "User/{action}/{id}",
            new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
            namespaces: new[] { "MvcApplication1.Areas.User.Controllers" }
        );
    }
}

There's also a Controller that's not in an area called "HomeController":

public class HomeController : Controller
{
    public ActionResult Index()
    {
        return View();
    }
}

RouteConfig.cs (for non-area routes) is as follows:

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

        routes.MapHttpRoute(
            name: "DefaultApi",
            routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
            defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
        );

        routes.MapRoute(
            name: "Default",
            url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
            defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
            namespaces: new[] { "MvcApplication1.Controllers" }
        );
    }
}

I am able to access the "homepage" via either

/
/Home
/Home/Index

I'm also able to get to the "Index" action in my "User" area

/User

What I cannot do is work out how to get to the other method on my Controller in the Area called "Details":

/User/Details/5 does not work, it returns a 404

I also notice that trying to access the Index method explicitly is also not routed correctly:

/User/Index does not work, it returns a 404

What am I doing wrong?

Is it possible to get to any action method other than "Index" on a controller that's the "default" controller in an area?

McGarnagle · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-27T04:04:34.990

4

There are too many defaults on your first route, so it's swallowing everything up.

the URI /User/Details/5 matches the User_default route (Controller: "Details" and Action: "5").
the URI /User/Index also matches the first route (Controller: "Index" and the default Action: "Index")

The way to approach routes is

put the most selective route first
and set only the minimum default values necessary
use route constraints to ensure that the MVC router doesn't attempt to match parameters incorrectly (ie, give route values intended for int parameters a numeric constraint)
put the most general route (ie, User_default) last (as a catch-all for URIs that didn't match any more specific route)

I'd try setting up the area routes like this.

context.MapRoute(
        "User_default_no_contoller",
        "User/{action}/{id}",
        defaults: new { controller = "Home", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
        constraints: new { id = @"\d+" },
        namespaces: new[] { "MvcApplication1.Areas.User.Controllers" }
    );

context.MapRoute(
        "User_default",
        "User/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
        new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
        namespaces: new[] { "MvcApplication1.Areas.User.Controllers" }
    );

edited Sep 27 '12 at 04:04

answered Sep 27 '12 at 03:50

McGarnagle

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Thanks, I'll try this out. Out of interest, what method do you use for validating (or testing) that your routes are configured correctly? – Paul Suart Sep 27 '12 at 06:30
@PaulSuart good question, but I don't really have an answer. I use the eyeball test. – McGarnagle Sep 27 '12 at 16:42
Just tried this out - you were right about the defaults "swallowing" everything. Cheers! – Paul Suart Sep 30 '12 at 20:40
1

@PaulSuart, I use the NuGet package [RouteDebugger](http://haacked.com/archive/2008/03/13/url-routing-debugger.aspx/) to analyse routing. I is capable of rendering route-matching information to the page. – R. Schreurs Feb 18 '16 at 11:44
How did you get this to work? It is not working for me on MVC 5 and I am following the exact same approach. – ryanulit Mar 03 '16 at 01:30

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 01 '13 at 20:58

Another suggestion to overcome this "Multi-defaults" problem is to separate using Namespaces.

In your example my suggestion is to have the Class UserAreaRegistration in the namespace "Areas.User" . Subsequently you would have to put your HomeController in the User Area in the Namespace "Areas.User.Controllers"

It works for me and keeps the code clean.

Peter

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 31 '13 at 10:42

Thanks for the answer dbaseman. It helped me look at my own routing problem. I am not sure if I was running into the same issue but that is what it seems like.

        routes.MapRoute("Tag", "Tag/{tag}", new { controller = "Blog", action = "Tag" });
        routes.MapRoute("Category", "Category/{category}", new { controller = "Blog", action = "Category" });
        routes.MapRoute("Post", "Archive/{year}/{month}/{day}/{title}", new {controller = "Blog", action = "Post"});
        routes.MapRoute("Action", "{action}", new { controller = "Blog", action = "Posts" });

When I had the last route with the "Action" parameters above any of the other routes the ones below "Action" would not be caught. Moving it to the bottom of the RouteConfig allowed all the ones above it to be hit successfully now.

MVC Routing and Areas - how to construct a route to match action on default controller in area?

3 Answers3