How to best link to an API controller

Question

To link to Controller/A/<anId> I do this:

@Html.ActionLink(anId, "Action", "Controller", new {id = anId})

Action is underlined by Resharper and I can navigate to it with F12.

But I have a link to an api controller:

@Html.ActionLink("API Version", "../api/controller/", new {id = anId})

This does not have a resharper navigation option and is not going to refactored if I rename the controller. Is there a cleaner way to link to an APIController from a razor view? Particularly one Resharper recognises.

Answer 1

As other answers have suggested already, you can use the Url.RouteUrl like so:

@Url.RouteUrl("DefaultApi", new {httproute= "", controller = "MyApiController"});

You can also use the shortcut method Url.HttpRouteUrl instead like so:

@Url.HttpRouteUrl("DefaultApi", new { controller = "MyApiController" })

"DefaultApi" is the default Route name when creating a new WebApi project. This string should match whatever name you gave your HttpRoute in the WebApiConfig.cs file.

Both of these solutions will only help you generate the URL to the route, they won't actually generate an HTML link for you. You need to use them like this:

<a href="@Url.HttpRouteUrl("DefaultApi", new { controller = "MyApiController" })">My Link Text</a>

If you want Razor to generate the HTML anchor tag for you, you can use this method instead:

@Html.RouteLink("My Link Text", "DefaultApi", new { controller = "MyApiController" })

This method provides a very similar interface to @Html.ActionLink which is used for regular Controller/Action links.

All of these solutions allow click-through to work with ReSharper.

Answer 2

You actually have to update the api routes, because api by default does not include an action.

So add this route:

config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
    name: "ActionRoute",
    routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
    defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
);

You can then create a link like so:

@Url.RouteUrl("ActionRoute", new {httproute= "", controller = "controller", action = "action"});

EDIT

I re-read your question and it doesn't say anything about an action, so I just assumed that, either way, you can still use @Url.RouterUrl:

@Url.RouteUrl("DefaultApi", new {httproute= "", controller = "controller"});