Ambiguous Controller Names in ASP.NET MVC

Question

I tried implementing Phil's Areas Demo in my project http://haacked.com/archive/2008/11/04/areas-in-aspnetmvc.aspx. I appended the Areas/Blog structure in my existing MVC project and I get the following error in my project.

The controller name 'Home' is ambiguous between the following types: WebMVC.Controllers.HomeController WebMVC.Areas.Blogs.Controllers.HomeController

this is how my global.asax looks.

public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes) { routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

        routes.MapAreas("{controller}/{action}/{id}",
            "WebMVC.Areas.Blogs",
            new[] { "Blogs", "Forums" });

        routes.MapRootArea("{controller}/{action}/{id}",
            "WebMVC",
            new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = "" });

        //routes.MapRoute(
        //    "Default",   // Route name
        //    "{controller}/{action}/{id}",// URL with parameters
        //    new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = "" }  
        //            // Parameter defaults
        //);

    }

    protected void Application_Start()
    {
        String assemblyName = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase;
        String path = new Uri(assemblyName).LocalPath;
        Directory.SetCurrentDirectory(Path.GetDirectoryName(path));
        ViewEngines.Engines.Clear();
        ViewEngines.Engines.Add(new AreaViewEngine());
                  RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
       // RouteDebug.RouteDebugger.RewriteRoutesForTesting(RouteTable.Routes);

    }

If I remove the /Areas/Blogs from routes.MapAreas , it looks at the Index of the root.

Answer 1

Instead of WebMVC.Areas.Blogs and WebMVC, use WebMVC.Areas.Blogs and WebMVC.Areas.OtherAreaName. Think of the area name as the namespace root, not an absolute namespace.

Answer 2

In ASP.NET MVC 2.0, you can include the namespace(s) for your parent project controllers when registering routes in the parent area.

routes.MapRoute(
    "Default",                                             
    "{controller}/{action}/{id}",                          
    new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = "" },
    new string[] { "MyProjectName.Controllers" }
);

This restricts the route to searching for controllers only in the namespace you specified.