Question

I am having problems with asp 4.0 routing.

i have methods in Global.cs

void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{  
    routes.MapPageRoute("cats","Categories/{ct}/{catname}","~/catwise.aspx");  
} 

and

protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
{  
    RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);  
}

and on my master page

<a href="Categories/<%# Eval("Category_Id")%>/<%# Eval("Category_Name")%>"> 

this is working perfectly in first routing like Categories/1/Apple but now after first routing all the links are double fro routed page like Categories/1/Apple/Categories/2/Banana.

The links are climbing on each other so the page shows Resource not found
i tried setting Base but it made the matters worse.
I am not using any custom handlers

how should i solve this problem?/why is it not working properly?

tried using / before url like <a href="/Categories/<%# Eval("Category_Id")%>/<%# Eval("Category_Name")%>"> but it said resource not found so added / in routes.MapPageRoute("cats","/Categories/{ct}/{catname}","~/catwise.aspx");
but it threw compile time error saying url cannot contan / or ~ or ?.

Answer 1

This is not a Routing issue. The problem is with the link. I don’t know if the is a better way to generate links in Web Pages but a quick fix would be to simply add a /:

<a href="/Categories/<%# Eval("Category_Id")%>/<%# Eval("Category_Name")%>">

EDIT:

When you are in the home page http://mysite/ and the browser see a “relative” link like Categories/1/Apple it adds that to the current path so the outcome is http://mysite/Categories/1/Apple. Because your link is relative to the page, the next time you hit the link the browser adds that again and you have http://mysite/Categories/1/Apple/Categories/1/Apple. The quick fix I proposed is about changing your relative link to absolute by adding a leading /.

The whole issue has nothing to do with asp.net and its routing. Its about how the browser treats relative links. I think there are more proper ways to generate links (when using routing), like:

<asp:HyperLink ID="HyperLink1" runat="server" 
    NavigateUrl="<%$RouteUrl:ct=1,catname=Apples,routename=cats%>">
    Link Text
</asp:HyperLink>

In the data binding scenario you can try:

<asp:HyperLink ID="HyperLinkClient" runat="server"  
    NavigateUrl='<%# GetRouteUrl("cats", new {ct = Eval("Category_Id"), catname = Eval("Category_Name")}) %>'> 
     Link Text 
</asp:HyperLink>

See also here