Link Helper Class in ASP.Net MVC; Where is the URL-Encode?

Question

To get the URL's I wanted i created a simple Link Creator helper for my search results. But it wont let me use server urlencode in it and some of the details passed are French/Czech/Swedish words commas and apostrophes;

Is there a quick function that will strip all this garbage out before hand?

Answer 1

Create custom HTML helper for this. Generate HTML markup using TagBuilder and use UrlEncode where you want. For example:

public static string SearchActionLink(this HtmlHelper html, string linkText, string actionName, object routeValues)
{
    var innerHtml = html.ViewContext.HttpContext.Server.UrlEncode("....");

    TagBuilder tagBuilder = new TagBuilder("a") {
        InnerHtml = innerHtml;
    };

    var urlHelper = new UrlHelper(html.ViewContext.RequestContext);
    var url = urlHelper.Action(actionName, routeValues);
    tagBuilder.MergeAttribute("href", url);

    return tagBuilder.ToString(TagRenderMode.Normal);
}

UPDATED:

Something like this?:

public static string SearchActionLink(this HtmlHelper html, string linkText, System.Web.Routing.RouteValueDictionary routeValues)
{
    var ref = html.ViewContext.HttpContext.Server.UrlEncode(routeValues["ref"]);
    routeValues["ref"] = "_REF_";

    TagBuilder tagBuilder = new TagBuilder("a") { InnerHtml = linkText; };

    var urlHelper = new UrlHelper(html.ViewContext.RequestContext);
    var url = urlHelper.RouteUrl(routeValues).Replace("_REF_", ref);

    tagBuilder.MergeAttribute("href", url);

    return tagBuilder.ToString(TagRenderMode.Normal);
}