Does HtmlHelper.RouteLink know about virtual directories?

Question

I have an issue where I'm generating links for my MVC app in a custom HtmlHelper, and RouteLink isn't aware that the MVC application has a virtual directory. This means I can debug and use the app fine in testing, but it generates invalid links in production. Is there a way to get RouteLink() or ActionLink() to include the virtual directory for the deployed application when links get generated?

Here's the relevant code snippet:

private const string STagLink = "<span class=\"tag-{0}\">{1}</span>\r\n";
...
MvcHtmlString link = html.RouteLink(x.Name,
   new { Tag = x.Name, Controller = x.Controller, Action = x.Action },
   new { @class = "tag", Title = x.Title });
sb.AppendFormat(STagLink, j, link.toHtmlString());

This generates a link like: "/Home/Tag/Production" for the development instance, but when the application is deployed to a virtual directory like /foo, the link is still "/Home/Tag/Production" instead of "/foo/Home/Tag/Production".

This discussion on Phil Haack's blog is similar: http://haacked.com/archive/2009/01/30/aspnetmvc-refresh.aspx#71053

Is the only solution to set an virtual path for the MVC application at development time? I was hoping MVC would be aware of the context in which it is running.

Answer 1

Do you mean Virtual Application or Virtual Directory? Virtual Directories apply to mapping physical folders to specific "virtual" URL folders. They are sort of orthogonal to ASP.NET MVC. I don't know of any way to run an ASP.NET MVC application "within a virtual directory" as I don't think that makes any sense.

If you're referring to Virtual Applications, then routing does take that into account when an ASP.NET MVC application is running within a virtual application.