ASP.NET w/ Restful Routes: Accessing a (sub)controller from within a resource

Question

I'm not really sure how to express this, but one pattern I often see in RoR apps is something like this:

/Post/postid/Comment/commentid

or

/Project/projectid/Tasks/taskid

Essentially in the model since a Project has Tasks you can access the TaskController from within a project resource.

Now I have started using the SimplyRestfulRouting from MVCContrib with ASP.NET MVC, so I have the following format:

Route => Action

/{Controller} => Index()

/{Controller}/{id} => Show()

I won't get into all the details, anyone can google SimplyRestfulRouting to see. I am wondering if there is a consistent way to then allow:

/{Controller}/{id}/{Controller}/{id} type syntax.

Obviously it would be ideal if this was a convention over configuration style rather than just setting up lots of routes.

Answer 1

I like this concept, I want to go to /Project/ProjectId/Tasks and see a filtered view of tasks for that Project. Personally, I don't mind, however, if the "item specific" views (e.g. details / show / update / etc) are back at /Task/TaskId.

I do, however, see how it could be beneficial for "dependent" types, such as when a task can't exist without a Project, for them to be accessed via /Project/ProjectId/Tasks/TaskId.

To implement my version, I have an Action in the Project controller as follows:

public ActionResult Tasks(string id)
{
    Project projectToDisplay = Repository.GetProject(id);
    ViewModel["Tasks"] = Repository.GetTasksForProject(projectToDispaly);
    return View(projectToDisplay);
}

Obviously, this could be improved with a strongly typed ViewModel.

For reference, my repository (Entity Framework specific) has the following code:

public Project GetProject(int id)
{
    return _entities.Projects.FirstOrDefault(m => m.Id == id);
}

public IList<Task> GetTasksForProject(Project project)
{
    return _entities.Tasks.Where(m => m.Project.Id == project.Id).ToList();
}

Alternatively, with Entity Framework, you could just do the following in the repository:

public Project GetProject(int id)
{
    return _entities.Projects.Include("Tasks").FirstOrDefault(m => m.Id == id);
}

And then the controller would just need:

public ActionResult Tasks(string id)
{
    return View(Repository.GetProject(id));
}

which is a little bit more ViewModel-esque.

(NB: This code has been adapted to your project / task context, so it is not my actual code. If this code doesn't work or has errors, I apologise, I've effectively re-written it so there may be typos / etc.)

Answer 2

I have found the answer and it is Steve Hodgekiss' Restful Routes. It is much more flexible than the one that comes with MVCContrib and allows for the sort of thing I am talking about and much, much more.

http://stevehodgkiss.com/2009/10/11/restful-routes-for-asp-net-mvc.html