We have built an MVC app that publishes a complete website with hierarchal Folders, SubFolders and Pages. The resulting pages, are strictly HTML and are not published in our MVC app. Our customers are able to name their Folders and Pages with any compliant string they choose. So conceivably, once the site is hosted, they could end up with a URL such as: someDomain.com/folder/subfolder1/subfolder2/page-slug. There is no limit to the number of nested subfolders.
We would like to replicate their sites in our MVC app, so that they are able to test them before they publish and perhaps so we can provide hosting ourselves if required.
The obvious problem, is how can we handle, ourMVCApp.com/folder/subfolder1/subfolder2/page-slug in an MVC app?
If there was a way that we could set routing to handle such a thing, then we could easily get the content required for the request by splitting the url into an array by "/".
The last segment would be a page contained in the previous segment's folder. We could then search our DB using these strings to get the required content.
Your help is greatly appreciated.
FURTHER QUESTION: In response to the answer provided by Tomi.
I added the code to my controller's class but I am receiving the following warning:
I am not sure what I am missing? Did I put the code in the place? Thanks again.
UPDATE 2. I realized I had not actually created the controller factory, so I followed a partial example I found here: http://develoq.net/2010/custom-controller-factory-in-asp-net-mvc/. And since implementing it, I no longer receive any build-errors, but when I run the the debug, it crashes the built-in IISEXPRESS without any error message.
Here is my controller factory code:
public class FolderControllerFactory : IControllerFactory
{
public IController CreateController(System.Web.Routing.RequestContext requestContext, string controllerName)
{
try
{
// Get the path
string path = requestContext.RouteData.Values["pathInfo"].ToString();
IController controller = new FolderController(path);
return controller;
}
catch
{
// Log routing error here and move on
return CreateController(requestContext, controllerName);
}
}
public void ReleaseController(IController controller)
{
var disposable = controller as IDisposable;
if (disposable != null)
{
disposable.Dispose();
}
}
public SessionStateBehavior GetControllerSessionBehavior(RequestContext requestContext, string controllerName)
{
return SessionStateBehavior.Default;
}
}
Here is my global:
ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory(typeof(ProofPixApp.Controllers.FolderControllerFactory));
And finally my controller:
public class FolderController : Controller
{
private string _path;
public FolderController(string path)
{
_path = path;
}
public ActionResult Index(string name)
{
ViewBag.Message = "Hello " + name;
return View("/Views/" + _path);
}
}
A couple of notes:
1. I removed the 'override' from public IController CreateController
because I kept receiving the initial error I posted.
2. I added public void ReleaseController and the public
SessionStateBehavior GetControllerSessionBehavior methods to the
CreateController class to avoid other build errors.
3. I removed 'base.' from the catch clause because it too was causing a
build error.
SOLUTION: I was able to avoid the error by checking to see pathValue was not null in the createController method, like so:
public IController CreateController(System.Web.Routing.RequestContext requestContext, string controllerName)
{
// Get the path
string path = "";
if (requestContext.RouteData.Values["pathInfo"] != null)
{
path = requestContext.RouteData.Values["pathInfo"].ToString();
}
IController controller = new FolderController(path);
return controller;
}
I have no idea what page slug is but here's my solution on how to achieve the routing you requested.
I made a custom ControllerFactory which handles the url and passes it to controller. This ControllerFactory constructs the controller we use to handle folder-route requests. We get the path from routevalues and then pass it to the FolderController.
public override IController CreateController(System.Web.Routing.RequestContext requestContext, string controllerName)
{
try
{
// Get the path
string path = requestContext.RouteData.Values["pathInfo"].ToString();
IController controller = new FolderController(path);
return controller;
}
catch
{
// Log routing error here and move on
return base.CreateController(requestContext, controllerName);
}
}
Here's the controller. The actionmethod, which redirects to given path is called Index for now. The actionmethod returns view it finds from the url.
public class FolderController : Controller
{
private string _path;
public FolderController(string path)
{
_path = path;
}
public FolderController()
{
}
public ActionResult Index(string name)
{
ViewBag.Message = "Hello " + name;
return View("/Views/"+_path);
}
}
Last step is to write our own route and register the factory. Open up RouteConfig.cs. My new RegisterRoutes method looks like this:
public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{
routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Dynamic",
url: "{*pathInfo}",
defaults: new { controller = "Folder", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
routes.MapRoute(
name: "Default",
url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
}
In global.asax we need to register our FolderControllerFactory by adding this line into Application_Start method
ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory(typeof(FolderControllerFactory));
And that's it! There's still much to be done, like handling improper urls and such. Also I don't think this supports plain html files, the files must be in .cshtml or asp format.
Here's the test:
My folder structure:
Url I request:
localhost:port/Mainfolder/Subfolder/Subfolder2/view.cshtml?name=Tomi
The result with Route Debugger plugin:
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