Question

In my limited (2 weeks) experience in asp.net MVC3, for most action methods, I have never needed to add a route registration. But I have noticed that if the action method has an input parameter, then I can’t access the method with a url of the form http://www.mysite.com/myController/myAction/myParameter1/myParameter2/myParameter3 (without the ? mark ) unless I map the route. Is that how its supposed to be?

Answer 1

By default, you already have registered route:

routes.MapRoute(
                "Default", // Route name
                "{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
                new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults
            );

it accepts one parameter, named id, so your action:

public ActionResult MyAction(string id)

will “catch” the request:

www.mysite.com/MyController/MyAction/parameter_value

and id will get value “parameter_value”.

If you need more than one parameter (or parameter has to be names something else than “id”), then you have to register new route.

In case when you have 2 parameters, you will register route like this:

routes.MapRoute(
                    "Default", 
                    "{controller}/{action}/{parameter1}/{parameter2}", 
                    new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", parameter1 = UrlParameter.Optional, parameter2=UrlParameter.Optional } 
                );

and your action might be:

public ActionResult MyAction(string parameter1, int? parameter2)