Attribute Routing With ASP.net MVC 5

Attribute Routing With ASP.net MVC 5

Introduction

• This Article shows how to use the Latest ASP.net MVC 5 Attribute Routing with your Application.
• This Article has 2 parts.First part of this Article will show the basic usage of Attribute Routing.
• Now you can read the 2nd part of this Article here 'Attribute Routing With ASP.net MVC 5 - Route Constraints' 

What is Routing ?

• Routing is how ASP.net MVC matches a URI to an Action

What is Attribute Routing ?

• ASP.net MVC 5 supports a new type of Routing, called Attribute Routing
• As the name implies, attribute routing uses attributes to define routes
• Attribute routing gives you more control over the URIs in your web application

How To Enable Attribute Routing ?

• For that, You have to select the RouteConfig.cs inside the App_Start Folder.
• After that call MapMvcAttributeRoutes is as below.

RouteConfig.cs

public class RouteConfig

    {

        public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)

        {

            routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

            routes.MapMvcAttributeRoutes();//Attribute Routing

            //Convention-based Routing

            routes.MapRoute(

                name: "Default",

                url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",

                defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index",

                                id = UrlParameter.Optional }

            );

        }

    }

Key points of the above code

• To enable Attribute Routing,You have to call MapMvcAttributeRouteson RouteConfig File.
• If you want, You can keep the Convention-based Routing also with the same file is as above.
• But routes.MapMvcAttributeRoutes(); Should configure before the Convention-based Routing.

How to use Optional URI Parameters ?

• To that you can add a question mark to the Route parameter
• Well, It's like this : [Route("Pet/{petKey?}")]

    PetController.cs

  public class PetController : Controller

    {

        // eg: /Pet

        // eg: /Pet/123

        [Route("Pet/{petKey?}")]

        public ActionResult GetPet(string petKey)

        {

            return View();

        }

       }

Key point of the above code

• In the above example, both /Pet and /Pet/123 will Route to the “GetPet” Action

Above Route on Browser is as below

                  

How to use Default Values URI Parameters ?

• To that you can specify a default value  to the route parameter
• It's like this : [Route("Pet/Breed/{petKey=123}")]

       PetController.cs
        

    public class PetController : Controller

     {

        // eg: /Pet/Breed

        // eg: /Pet/Breed/528

        [Route("Pet/Breed/{petKey=123}")]

        public ActionResult GetSpecificPet(string petKey)

        {

            return View();

        }

     }

Key point of the above code

• In the above example, both /Pet/Breed and /Pet/Breed/528 will route to the“GetSpecificPet” Action

How to use Route Prefixes ?

• Normally, the routes in a controller all start with the same prefix
• Well,It's like this : /Booking

BookingController.cs

public class BookingController : Controller
    {

        // eg: /Booking

        [Route("Booking")]

        public ActionResult Index() { return View(); }

        // eg: /Booking/5

        [Route("Booking/{bookId}")]

        public ActionResult Show(int bookId) { return View(); }

        // eg: /Booking/5/Edit

        [Route("Booking/{bookId}/Edit")]

        public ActionResult Edit(int bookId) { return View(); }

    }