Dynamic And Friendly URL Using MVC

Dynamic URL is a great feature working with MVC. Friendly URLs are even better. The following approach, I think, is the best way to work with friendly URL.

So, let's define some premises.

The URLs must be stored in a Repository. This means, I want to change and create new URLs in my repository;
One or more URLs can be pointed to the same Controller/Action. This means, I want to have alias for URLs;
If a URL does not exist in my Repository, try to resolve it using MVC Controller/Action default behavior. It means, the MVC default behavior will still work;
The URL cannot contain an ID at the end. It means that the last segment of those URLs can be a long ID number.

First of all, MVC does not have a built-in feature for dynamic and friendly URLs. You must write your own custom code.

For solution, we will need the following.

An MVC project;
A class to handle route requests;
A route repository;
Controllers and Views;

PS- I will not use a database to store those URLs but I will use the repository pattern and dependency resolver to configure it. So, you can create a database repository in future.

Class that identifies a URL -

Handlers/UrlHandler.cs

public sealed class UrlHandler {
public static UrlRouteData GetRoute(string url) {
url = url ? ? "/";
url = url == "/" ? "" : url;
url = url.ToLower();
UrlRouteData urlRoute = null;
using(var repository = DependencyResolver.Current.GetService < IRouteRepository > ()) {
var routes = repository.Find(url);
var route = routes.FirstOrDefault();
if (route != null) {
route.Id = GetIdFromUrl(url);
urlRoute = route;
urlRoute.Success = true;
} else {
route = GetControllerActionFromUrl(url);
urlRoute = route;
urlRoute.Success = false;
}
}
return urlRoute;
}
private static RouteData GetControllerActionFromUrl(string url) {
var route = new RouteData();
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(url)) {
var segmments = url.Split('/');
if (segmments.Length >= 1) {
route.Id = GetIdFromUrl(url);
route.Controller = segmments[0];
route.Action = route.Id == 0 ? (segmments.Length >= 2 ? segmments[1] : route.Action) : route.Action;
}
}
return route;
}
private static long GetIdFromUrl(string url) {
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(url)) {
var segmments = url.Split('/');
if (segmments.Length >= 1) {
var lastSegment = segmments[segmments.Length - 1];
long id = 0;
long.TryParse(lastSegment, out id);
return id;
}
}
return 0;
}
}

Route Handler that handles all requests.

Handlers/UrlRouteHandler.cs

public IHttpHandler GetHttpHandler(RequestContext requestContext)
{
var routeData = requestContext.RouteData.Values;
var url = routeData["urlRouteHandler"] as string;
var route = UrlHandler.GetRoute(url);
routeData["url"] = route.Url;
routeData["controller"] = route.Controller;
routeData["action"] = route.Action;
routeData["id"] = route.Id;
routeData["urlRouteHandler"] = route;
return new MvcHandler(requestContext);
}

The route handler configuration.

App_Start/RouteConfig.cs

public class RouteConfig
{
public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{
routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");
routes.MapRoute(
"IUrlRouteHandler",
"{*urlRouteHandler}").RouteHandler = new UrlRouteHandler();
}
}

Repository/IRouteRepository.cs

public interface IRouteRepository: IDisposable
{
IEnumerable < RouteData > Find(string url);
}

Repository/StaticRouteRepository.cs

public class StaticRouteRepository: IRouteRepository
{
public void Dispose() {
}
public IEnumerable < RouteData > Find(string url) {
var routes = new List < RouteData > ();
routes.Add(new RouteData() {
RoouteId = Guid.NewGuid(),
Url = "how-to-write-file-using-csharp",
Controller = "Articles",
Action = "Index"
});
routes.Add(new RouteData() {
RoouteId = Guid.NewGuid(),
Url = "help/how-to-use-this-web-site",
Controller = "Help",
Action = "Index"
});
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(url)) {
var route = routes.SingleOrDefault(r => r.Url == url);
if (route == null) {
route = routes.FirstOrDefault(r => url.Contains(r.Url)) ? ? routes.FirstOrDefault(r => r.Url.Contains(url));
}
if (route != null) {
var newRoutes = new List < RouteData > ();
newRoutes.Add(route);
return newRoutes;
}
}
return new List < RouteData > ();
}
}

I have created 2 URLs. One URL will point to the Help Controller while the other one to the Articles Controller. For dependency resolver configuration, I used Ninject.

App_Start/NinjectWebCommon.cs

private static void RegisterServices(IKernel kernel)
{
kernel.Bind < Repository.IRouteRepository > ().To < Repository.StaticRouteRepository > ();
}

Download full source code .

3 Comments

Join the conversation! Your thoughts help the community grow.

Subash10y ago
Very nice explanation sir but if u explain what is friendly url in simple sentence it more good
- Fabio Silva Lima10y ago
  Hello Subash! Usually we create our URL using Controller/Action pattern like: "articles/view/23232". But we can make it friendly. The same URL would be "how-to-read-file-using-csharp".
Manav Pandya10y ago
Great article and explaination sir @fabio