Differentiating Between MVC Routes

Question

I have two similar seo friendly routes going to different controllers/actions:

routes.MapRoute(
    "Locations",
    "{controller}/{locationId}/{location}",
    new { controller = "Locations", action = "Location", location = UrlParameter.Optional },
    new { locationId = @"\d+" }
);

routes.MapRoute(
    "News",
    "{controller}/{newsId}/{newsTitle}",
    new { controller = "News", action = "NewsItem", newsTitle = UrlParameter.Optional },
    new { newsId = @"\d+" }
);

The News route returns a 404 error and visa versa if I swap them. I tried adding a default controller to each - this did nothing. I then tried replacing {controller} with the actual name of the controller. This generated a

The matched route does not include a 'controller' route value, which is required

error message.

Here's a link for each:

@Html.ActionLink(x.newsTitle, "NewsItem", "News", new { newsId = x.newsID, newsTitle = x.newsTitle.ToSeoUrl() },null)

<a href="@Url.Action("Location", "Locations", new { locationId = "1", location = "my-place-name" }, null)"><i class="fa fa-map-marker fa-li red"></i>My Place Name</a>

I 'fixed it' by switching locationId and location querystring elements. OK so it works, but I feel this isn't the right solution. What if I have a third controller action with a similar querystring pair?

A final attempt was to make the route more generic:

routes.MapRoute(
    "SEO",
    "{controller}/{Id}/{Title}",
    new { Title = UrlParameter.Optional },
    new { Id = @"\d+" }
);

Bu then I can't pass the action and I'd be back to a less SEO friendly URL.

In the end I would like to end up with:

• Locations/locationId/my-place-name
• News/newsId/my-news-item

I'm relatively new to MVC and I'm sure I'm missing something fundamental (or just being dumb).

Answer 1

The problem is that a URL for both actions will match the first route you have added. For example, this URL:

http://yoursite.com/News/123/some-news-article

Will attempt to call the action Locations in your News controller, which obviously doesn't exist and gives you a 404 error.

You can get around this by specifying the path in the URL of the route instead of using {controller}. For example:

routes.MapRoute(
    "Locations",
    "Locations/{locationId}/{location}",
    new { controller = "Locations", action = "Location", location = UrlParameter.Optional },
    new { locationId = @"\d+" }
);

routes.MapRoute(
    "News",
    "News/{newsId}/{newsTitle}",
    new { controller = "News", action = "NewsItem", newsTitle = UrlParameter.Optional },
    new { newsId = @"\d+" }
);