Get controller and action from routeName

Question

I am trying to construct a extension method which can highlight the navigation item which is currently viewed.

All my links are generated using a standard Url.RouteUrl("RouteName") - this generates a fully qualified link for the controller and action.

Now I need to extract the controller and action from this url. Does ASP.NET MVC5 provide any features for getting that information out of a route name? Eg by asking a method with a supplied routeName which will get me an object of the controller and action which the routeName will point to?

Answer 1

I found some code on Google, which seems to work just fine. About to fine tune this snippet:

public static MvcHtmlString MenuRouteLink(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper, string linkText, string routeName, RouteValueDictionary routeValues = null, IDictionary<string, object> htmlAttributes = null)
{
    var currentAction = htmlHelper.ViewContext.RouteData.GetRequiredString("action");
    var currentController = htmlHelper.ViewContext.RouteData.GetRequiredString("controller");
    if (htmlAttributes == null) htmlAttributes = new Dictionary<string, object>();

    var route = RouteTable.Routes[routeName] as Route;
    if (route != null)
    {
        routeValues = routeValues ?? new RouteValueDictionary();
        var routeAction = (routeValues["action"] as string ?? route.Defaults["action"] as string) ?? String.Empty;
        var routeController = (routeValues["controller"] as string ?? route.Defaults["controller"] as string) ?? String.Empty;

        if (routeAction.Equals(currentAction, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) && routeController.Equals(currentController, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
        {
            var currentCssClass = htmlAttributes.ContainsKey("class") ? htmlAttributes["class"] as string : String.Empty;
            htmlAttributes["class"] = String.Concat(currentCssClass, !String.IsNullOrEmpty(currentCssClass) ? " " : String.Empty, "selected");
        }
    }

    return htmlHelper.RouteLink(linkText, routeName, routeValues, htmlAttributes);
}