MVC noob - changing part of URL in a link

Question

Hi,

I have a site that supports localization. I would like to be able to switch between english and french.

Let say the user is currently at URL: http://www.mysite.com/en/Home

I would like to redirect to: http://www.mysite.com/fr/Home

If the user click on a "French" link how to change the URL part to "fr" yet not change the "Home" part of the URL (basically I want preserve the current location of the user)

Hope my question makes sense! I'm probably missing something very basic?

EDIT: Kind of found a solution.

<%= Html.ActionLink("Français", ViewContext.RouteData.Values["action"].ToString(), ViewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"].ToString(), new { culture = "fr" }, null)%>
<%= Html.ActionLink("English", ViewContext.RouteData.Values["action"].ToString(), ViewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"].ToString(), new { culture = "en" }, null)%>

This maintains the action/controller of the current URL. Maybe there's a cleaner solution?

Answer 1

I would suggest making the urls in this format:

http://www.mysite.com/Home/en

Then you can make actions as simple as this:

<%= Html.ActionLink("Francais", "Home", "MyController", new { id = "fr" }), null %>
<%= Html.ActionLink("English", "Home", "MyController", new { id = "en" }), null %>

Then in your controller have an action:

public ActionResult Home(string id)
{
    if(id == "en"){ // do something } 
    else if(id == "fr") { // do something else }
    return View();
}

Global.asax Route

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

Answer 2

In your Global.asax

 routes.MapRoute(
               "LocalizedRoute",                                              // Route name
               "{language}/{controller}/{action}/{id}",                           // URL with parameters
               new { language= "fr", controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = string.Empty }, // Parameter defaults
               new { language= @"[a-z]{2}" });    // Constraints       

And you can have access to the language with the variable language in your controller

To generate a link:

<%= Html.ActionLink("French", ViewContext.RouteData.Values["action"], new { language = "fr" }) %>

And you can make a base class controller with this property:

public string Language { get { return this.Routedata["language"]; } }