How to determine if page or controller is the entry point of the website (the home page)?

Question

In ASP.NET Core, from within a page or a controller, how can I check if that page or controller is the home page of the website? By "home page", I mean the controller or page you get when you enter just the root of the website, like "www.mysite.com/".

I'm aware that I can get the RouteData and use its Values property to get the current page or controller, like string? currentPage = RouteData.Values["page"] as string and then check if currentPage == "/Index". However, what if custom route conventions specify a different name for the home page instead of the default "/Index" page or "/Home" controller?

In short, how can I make a reliable method like the hypothetical IsHome() method, that tells me if I'm in the home page of the website, independently of whether I'm using MVC controllers or Razor pages?

Answer 1

You can inject the HttpContextAccessor and access the "controller" and "action" names using HttpContext.Request.RouteValues

HttpContext.Request.RouteValues
Count = 2
    [0]: {[action, Index]}
    [1]: {[controller, Home]}

---

1. Add the service to your Program.cs

builder.Services.AddSingleton<IHttpContextAccessor, HttpContextAccessor>();

2. Create a static class and method that accepts 2 string parameters

public static class HomeHelper
{
   public static bool IsHome(string controller, string action)
   {
      // customize the logic depending on which you want is the home
      return (controller.toLower() == "home" && action.toLower() == "index")
   }
}

3. Inject httpContextAccessor in your controller and use the static class, in the example below it's home controller

public class HomeController : ControllerBase
{
   private readonly IHttpContextAccessor _contextAccessor;

   public HomeController(IHttpContextAccessor contextAccessor)
   {
      _contextAccessor = contextAccessor;
   }

   public IActionResult Index()
   {
      var controllerName = _contextAccessor.HttpContext.Request.RouteValues["controller"];
      var actionName = _context.Accessor.HttpContext.Request.RouteValues["action"];
      
      // this will return true
      var isHome = HomeHelper.IsHome(controllerName, actionName);

      return Content("");
   }
}

---

The default route your project is indicated in; Project > Properties > launchSettings.json then look for launchUrl

---

You can also indicate another default route or fallback by specifying in your Program.cs; app.MapFallbackToController("Index", "Home");