Specify special case handler for MapRoute in ASP.NET MVC 3

Question

I have the following Route defined in Global.asax:

routes.MapRoute(
                "IncidentActionWithId", // Route name
                "Incidents/{companyId}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
                new { controller = "Incidents" } // Parameter defaults
            );

I have a special case of request, like this one:

/Incidents/SuperCompany/SearchPeople/Ko

In this case, action should indeed map to SearchPeople action, comapnyId to this action's parameter, but only when action is SearchPeople, the Ko should not be mapped to an id parameter of the action, but to searchTerm.

My action declaration is:

[HttpGet]
public ActionResult SearchPeople(string companyId, string searchTerm)

How can I achieve Ko to be mapped to searchTerm parameter in my action method?

Answer 1

You can define two routes, one with id and one with searchTerm if the id is supposed to be numeric (or you can specify regex constratints) and have different pattern to searchTerm.

See here how you can define constraints.

Example:

routes.MapRoute(
            "IncidentActionWithId", // Route name
            "Incidents/{companyId}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
            new { controller = "Incidents" }, // Parameter defaults
            new {id = @"\d+"} // numeric only
        );

routes.MapRoute(
            "IncidentActionWithId", // Route name
            "Incidents/{companyId}/{action}/{searchterm}", // URL with parameters
            new { controller = "Incidents" } 
        );

NOTE

Define the one with constraint first.