Getting-Started.md

Getting Started

Convention over configuration Routing

Suppose you want a URL like Store/Products/Browse/{category}/{page}, the Store segment can be mapped to a namespace, Products to a controller, Browse to an action, and the rest to parameters. So, your code should look like this:

using System.Web.Mvc;
using MvcCodeRouting.Web.Mvc;

namespace MyStore.Controllers.Store {
   
    public class ProductsController : Controller {
      
        public ActionResult Browse([FromRoute]string category, [FromRoute]int page = 1) { 
            ...
        }
    }
}

Note that the page parameter has a default value, that makes the route parameter optional.

Importing the correct namespace

The above example imports the MvcCodeRouting.Web.Mvc namespace, which contains the attributes and extension methods for ASP.NET MVC controllers. For ASP.NET Web API controllers you should import the MvcCodeRouting.Web.Http namespace. For more information about MvcCodeRouting's namespaces see the API reference.

Default actions

By convention, an action named Index (with zero route parameters) is used as the default action. To override the convention decorate your action with the DefaultAction attribute.

Action-based vs. verb-based routing

Web API supports both action-based and verb-based routing. For action-based routing you must use an HTTP verb attribute, such as [HttpGet], for example:

[HttpGet]
public string Foo() {
   return "Foo";
}

If an HTTP verb attribute is not used then it is asumed that the action name is the HTTP method and verb-based routing will be used:

public string Get() {
   return "Foo";
}

Although Web API also supports a hybrid approach (e.g. GetFoo()), this doesn't work with MvcCodeRouting, unless you actually want Get to be part of the action name.

You can use both action-based and verb-based routing in the same controller.

Registration

Use the MapCodeRoutes extension method to register your controllers:

using System.Web.Routing;
using MvcCodeRouting;

void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes) {

    routes.MapCodeRoutes(typeof(Controllers.HomeController));
}

The rootController is used as the starting point for your controllers and routes, controllers must be defined in the same namespace or any sub-namespace beneath it, in the same assembly. Routes for the root controller do not include the controller segment, e.g. About instead of Home/About. Imagine a bunch of files in the C:\ drive, they do not belong to a folder. In MVC of course, actions must belong to a controller, so we simply designate a controller to act as the root controller.

Web API

Unlike MapRoute vs. MapHttpRoute, with MvcCodeRouting you don't need to call a different method to create routes for Web API controllers. Both MVC and Web API controllers can coexist side by side in the same namespace. Just make sure you install the MvcCodeRouting.Web.Http.WebHost package, otherwise your Web API controllers will be ignored.

This also means that in the above example, instead of using an MVC controller as root you can use a Web API controller.

However, if you are using a different kind of hosting, e.g. OWIN, then you should call the MapCodeRoutes method that extends HttpConfiguration.

Namespace-aware views location

To enable namespace-aware views location call the EnableCodeRouting extension method:

void Application_Start() {
    RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
    RegisterViewEngines(ViewEngines.Engines);
}

void RegisterViewEngines(ViewEngineCollection viewEngines) {
     
    // Call AFTER you are done making changes to viewEngines
    viewEngines.EnableCodeRouting();
}

Visualize your routes

After installing MvcCodeRouting using NuGet you should have the following code in your Web.config:

<system.web>
    <httpHandlers>
        <add path="routes.axd" verb="GET,HEAD" type="MvcCodeRouting.RouteDebugHandler, MvcCodeRouting"/>
    </httpHandlers>
</system.web>
<system.webServer>
    <validation validateIntegratedModeConfiguration="false"/>
    <handlers>
        <add name="MvcCodeRouting.RouteDebugHandler" path="routes.axd" verb="GET,HEAD" type="MvcCodeRouting.RouteDebugHandler, MvcCodeRouting"/>
    </handlers>
</system.webServer>

Navigate to ~/routes.axd to visualize the routes that MvcCodeRouting created for you. ~/routes.axd only works for local requests.