Question

What’s the best option for generating links using helpers in ASP.NET MVC 3?

As far as I can see it’s better to use Url.RouteUrl and Html.RouteLink helpers than Url.Action and Html.ActionLink to generate links because the first two allow you to use RouteName instead of Controller and Action for url pattern matching.

Answer 1

What does best mean in this context?

Does it mean:

• Easy for Front End developers to code against? (e.g., do they have to write C# to make a link?)
• Easy to maintain if you change where the links point to a lot?
• Easy for new developers to follow?
• Best if you use strongly typed objects to make your links?
• Best if you have very little information that you need for each link?

Because there are so many ways to make links, and each method has a different purpose, I use all of them at different times, but I normally just wrap the link in a HtmlHelper method and create a strong name for it:

public static MvcHtmlString GenerateProductUrl(this Urlhelper helper, Product product)
{
    return MvcHtmlString.Create(
        helper.RouteUrl(
            "widgetlink", 
            new {
                    productID = product.ProductId, 
                    productName = product.ProductName.ToUrlSlug() 
                }
        )
    );
}

Then you call call this as follows:

<a href="<%= Url.GenerateProductUrl(Model.Product) %>" class="xurl"><%= Html.Encode(Model.Product.Name) %></a>

If you prefer to have a whole link generated for you (probably because you don’t have specialized CSS classes for individual links), then you could use this:

public static MvcHtmlString GenerateProductLink(this Htmlhelper helper, Product product)
{
    return MvcHtmlString.Create(
        helper.RouteLink(
            "widgetlink", 
            new {
                    productID = product.ProductId, 
                    productName = product.ProductName.ToUrlSlug() 
                }
        )
    );
}

Using HtmlHelpers and UrlHelpers gives you the following advantages:

• One canonical place to change links
• Easy name to remember, with Intellisense generation (Start typing Html. and all of your links show up, especially if you put Generate as the prefix to generate links and URLs
• Use HtmlHelpers when you need a whole link encapsulated, and use UrlHelpers when you just need something to build a URL

I go into this at length in a blog post I wrote where I listed some tips for writing URLs in ASP.NET MVC.