Question

I’m using the following route to handle localization on my ASP.NET MVC Application

            routes.MapRoute("Globalization", "{culture}/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
            new
            {
                controller = "Home",
                action = "Index",
                id = UrlParameter.Optional
            });

So the scheme is http://mysite.com/en-US/Contact or http://mysite.com/es-ES/Contact

I’m trying to make some culture links in _Layout.cshtml in order to switch culture. But i need to only switch culture and stay on the same view.

Current View : http://mysite.com/en-US/Contact

=> Switch To es-ES

New View : http://mysite.com/es-ES/Contact

How can i perform that ?

Thanks.

Answer 1

This is quite tricky actually. You could simply use @Html.ActionLink("Spanish", null, new { @culture = "es-ES" }), however this will preserve only parameters defined in route and query string will be lost in localized version. Because of this I’ve written following helper:

/// <summary>
/// Returns current url modified by parameters
/// </summary>
/// <param name="context">Relevant request context</param>
/// <param name="withRouteValues">Values to add or override</param>
/// <param name="withoutRouteValues">Values to remove if present</param>
/// <returns>Url</returns>
public static RouteValueDictionary Current(RequestContext context, RouteValueDictionary withRouteValues = null, string[] withoutRouteValues = null)
{
    var with = withRouteValues ?? new RouteValueDictionary();
    var without = withoutRouteValues ?? new string[0];

    var result = new RouteValueDictionary();

    var queryString = context.HttpContext.Request.QueryString;
    foreach (var key in queryString.AllKeys.Where(k => !IgnoreValues.Contains(k) && !without.Contains(k)))
        result[key] = queryString[key];

    var routeValues = context.RouteData.Values;
    foreach (var pair in routeValues.Where(p => !IgnoreValues.Contains(p.Key) && !without.Contains(p.Key)))
        result[pair.Key] = pair.Value;

    foreach (var pair in with.Where(p => !IgnoreValues.Contains(p.Key) && !without.Contains(p.Key)))
        result[pair.Key] = pair.Value;

    return result;
}

/// <summary>
/// Returns anchor element with current url modified by parameters
/// </summary>
/// <param name="self">Html helper</param>
/// <param name="linkText">The inner text of anchor element</param>
/// <param name="withRouteValues">Values to add or override</param>
/// <param name="withoutRouteValues">Values to remove if present</param>
/// <returns>Anchor element</returns>
public static MvcHtmlString CurrentLink(this HtmlHelper self, string linkText, object withRouteValues = null, string[] withoutRouteValues = null)
{
    var routeValues = Current(self.ViewContext.RequestContext, withRouteValues, withoutRouteValues);

    return self.ActionLink(linkText, null, routeValues);
}

With this @Html.CurrentLink("Spanish", new { culture = "es-ES" }) should accomplish exactly what you want.