ASP.NET MVC 5 URL Routing

Convention-based Routing

Creating and Registering a Simple Route

App_Start/RouteConfig.cs

    public class RouteConfig
    {
        public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
        {
            routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

            routes.MapRoute(
                name: "Default",
                url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
                defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
            );
        }
    }

Global.asax.cs

    protected void Application_Start()
    {
        AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();
        RouteConfig.RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
    }

Using Static URL Segments

        public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
        {
            routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

            routes.MapRoute(
                name: "Default",
                url: "public/x{controller}/{action}/{id}",
                defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
            );
        }

Defining Variable-Length Routes

        public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
        {
            routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

            routes.MapRoute(
                name: "Default",
                url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}/{*catchall}",
                defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
            );
        }

Prioritizing Controllers by Namespaces

        public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
        {
            routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

            routes.MapRoute(
                name: "Default",
                url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}/{*catchall}",
                defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
                namespaces: new string[] { "UrlsAndRoutes.Controllers" }
            );
        }

Constraining a Route Using a Regular Expression

        public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
        {
            routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

            routes.MapRoute(
                name: "Default",
                url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}/{*catchall}",
                defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
                constraints: new { controller = "^H.*" },
                namespaces: new string[] { "UrlsAndRoutes.Controllers" }
            );
        }

Constraining a Route to a Set of Specific Values

        public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
        {
            routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

            routes.MapRoute(
                name: "Default",
                url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}/{*catchall}",
                defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
                constraints: new { controller = "^H.*", action = "^Index$|^About$"},
                namespaces: new string[] { "UrlsAndRoutes.Controllers" }
            );
        }

Constraining a Route Using HTTP Methods

        public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
        {
            routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

            routes.MapRoute(
                name: "Default",
                url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}/{*catchall}",
                defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
                constraints: new { controller = "^H.*", action = "^Index$|^About$", httpMethod = new HttpMethodConstraint("GET") },
                namespaces: new string[] { "UrlsAndRoutes.Controllers" }
            );
        }

Using Type and Value Constraints

        public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
        {
            routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

            routes.MapRoute(
                name: "Default",
                url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}/{*catchall}",
                defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
                constraints: new { controller = "^H.*", action = "^Index$|^About$", httpMethod = new HttpMethodConstraint("GET"), id = new RangeRouteConstraint(10,20) },
                namespaces: new string[] { "UrlsAndRoutes.Controllers" }
            );
        }

Defining a Custom Constraint

If the standard constraints are not sufficient for your needs, you can define your own custom constraints by implementing the IRouteConstraint interface.

    public class UserAgentConstraint: IRouteConstraint
    {
        private string requiredUserAgent;

        public UserAgentConstraint(string agentParam)
        {
            requiredUserAgent = agentParam;
        }

        public bool Match(HttpContextBase httpContext, Route route, string parameterName, RouteValueDictionary values, RouteDirection routeDirection)
        {
            return httpContext.Request.UserAgent != null && httpContext.Request.UserAgent.Contains(requiredUserAgent);
        }
    }

        public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
        {
            routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

            routes.MapRoute(
                name: "ChromeOnly",
                url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}/{*catchall}",
                defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
                constraints: new { customConstraint = new UserAgentConstraint("chrome") }
            );

            routes.MapRoute(
                name: "Default",
                url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}/{*catchall}",
                defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
                constraints: new { controller = "^H.*", action = "^Index$|^About$", httpMethod = new HttpMethodConstraint("GET"), id = new RangeRouteConstraint(10, 20) },
                namespaces: new string[] { "UrlsAndRoutes.Controllers" }
            );
        }

 

Attribute Routing

This is not a recommend way to handle routing, but in case you need this feature, you can turn it on by using command: routes.MapMvcAttributeRoutes() in RouteConfig.RegisterRoutes method.