MVC Routing question

Question

I have the following route:

routes.MapRoute("Archive", "archive/{year}", new
    {
        controller = "Archive",
        action = "Results"
    }
);

I have the route working correctly, but I would like my url to show as follows:

http://mysite.com/archive/2008

when I click on the search button instead of just:

http://mysite.com/archive

I DON'T want to do this by creating an action link to that url, I want the submit button to do it.

EDIT:

More info. On my home page, I have a textbox that, when the submit button is clicked, passes the year value typed in the textbox to the Action method Results in my Archive controller that takes one parameter, year. I am getting the correct value in the method right now, I just want the year displayed in the url as well. If I manually type in the year in the url like above, it works just as I expect as well.

THANKS!

Answer 1

You need to set the default value for the {year} parameter as 2008 in that case. Thus, the route you need is as follows:

routes.MapRoute("Archive", 
  "archive/{year}", 
  new { controller = "Archive", action = "Results", year = 2008 } );

You can also make this dynamic:

routes.MapRoute("Archive", 
  "archive/{year}", 
  new { controller = "Archive", action = "Results", year = DateTime.Now.Year } );

However, I should note that this is dynamic only at Web Application start time, since the routes are defined at Application_Start, which happens once, and the value of DateTime.Now.Year is cached as the value at that time.

Answer 2

You should pass the Year parameter to the BeginForm(), like:

<% 
    using (Html.BeginForm("Results", "Archive", new { year = DateTime.Now.Year }))
    {
        // form
    }
%>

Answer 3

You could also have a hidden form element named "year" that gets posted when you submit the form

<%=Html.Hidden("year",2008) %>