Question

I need to generate urls for use in javascript. I don’t think my current solution is very readable.

//Navigation during load: Id from MVC or hash or zero.
var m_departmentId = <%= ViewContext.RouteData.Values["id"] ?? 0 %>;
if(0 == m_departmentId)
{            
    var hash = location.hash;            
    //Only one hash value
    var id = parseInt(hash.substring(2));

    //If it's a real Id, use it.
    if (!isNaN(id)) {
        m_departmentId = id;

    }
}

var gridUrl = '<%= Url.Action("GetEmployees", "Company", new { area = "" }) %>/' + m_departmentId;

This script is placed at top of my page javascript where I translate aspnet-variables to js-variables.

Can I get rid of the first javascript?
Can I improve the readability of the last row? Imho it’s rather hideous, especially within my page javascript.
Other improvements?

---

Improvement 1:

var gridUrl = '<%= Url.Content("~/Company/GetEmployees/") }) %>' + m_departmentId;

T4MVC didn’t work when the action was the default action for the route, because the action was stripped from the path when no action argument was used.

Answer 1

I think you need the JavaScript for the hash. You can’t read hashes server-side.

T4MVC may help you with the “ugly” URL generation. It will at least get rid of the magic strings (still can’t believe they went that route with the UrlHelper).