ASP.NET MVC search route

Question

I setup a search route:

routes.MapRoute(
 "Search",
 "Search/{q}",
 new { controller = "Search", action = "Index" }
);

The search form has an input box and a button. I want the search with a GET as below.

<% using(Html.BeginForm("Index", "Search", FormMethod.Get))
{%>
    <%:Html.TextBox("q")%>
        <span class="query-button">
        <input type="submit" value="select" /></span>
    <% } %>
 </div>

The action on the SearchController is:

public ActionResult Index(string q)
{
   // search logic here

   return View(new SearchResult(q));
}

The URL becomes like this: http://localhost:19502/search?q=mvc+is+great

But I want the search to be like: http://localhost:19502/search/mvc+is+great

How do I setup the route or the Html.BeginForm

Answer 1

There isn't a straightforward way to do it with just a form. A form's intended function is to transmit name/value pairs - using MVC doesn't change that.

So your options are:

• Override the functionality of the form using Javascript by handling the submit event of the form, redirecting to the desired URL and returning false to prevent the form from actually submitting
• Don't use a form and handle the click event of a button to do the redirect.

Your route is already correctly set up to handle this.