ASP.NET MVC Routing - "Blank" Route

Question

Can I set up a route that will get mapped from a root-level URL like this?

http://localhost:49658/

I'm using the VS2010 built-in web server.

Attempting to set up a route with a blank or a single-slash URL string doesn't work:

routes.MapRoute(
    "Default",
    "/",
    new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults
);

It results in the error "The route URL cannot start with a '/' or '~' character and it cannot contain a '?' character.". Thanks in advance! My entire route definition is here:

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

        routes.MapRoute(
            "EditingTitles", // Route name
            "{controller}/{action}/{startingLetter}", // URL with parameters
            new { controller = "Admin", action = "Index", startingLetter = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults
        );

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

Answer 1

What are you trying to achieve here... a URL that looks like this? http://www.acme.com/ ? Because if you are, the default route will achieve that when none of the parameters are specified.

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