Twitter like url routing in asp.net mvc?

Question

I ve seen in twitter, i can get a user view page by just typing in the url say http://twitter.com/pandiyachendur. How to do the same with asp.net mvc? I dont know how twitter does it?

Answer 1

I imagine that they have some regular exception that checks the request to see if it matches something that could be a user's profile and then push that request to an appropriate controller action.

They'd likely might list first all of the exceptions are static routes, like "/invitations", and then pass everything else to a default controller action that attempts to display a user's page.

Answer 2

You need to be careful about the order in which you declare your routes. Since there is no common element to a /{username} URL, you need to declare it as the last 'catch-all' route, after all of your specific routes.

RouteTable.Routes.MapRoute(null, "LogIn", new { controller = "Account", action = "LogIn" });
RouteTable.Routes.MapRoute(null, "LogOut", new { controller = "Account", action = "LogOut" });
// ... other routes go here ...

// Final catch-all route to map /{username} to the Account.Details action.
RouteTable.Routes.MapRoute(null, "{id}", new { controller = "Account", action = "Details" });

It's also worth remembering that you need to extend your validation on usernames to prevent people from choosing names that conflict with the specific routes (e.g. LogIn).