How to Change ASP.NET MVC Controller Name in URL?

Question

If we have "example_name" we can change it in url using [ActionName("")] So, i want to do this for controller name.

I can do this:

ControllerName > example_nameController > in URL: "/example_controller"

I would like to change controller name like this in URL: "/example-conroller"

Answer 1

You need to use Attribute Routing, a feature introduced in MVC 5.

Based on your example you should edit your controller as follows:

[RoutePrefix("example-name")]
public class example_nameController : Controller
{
    // Route: example-name/Index
    [Route]
    public ActionResult Index()
    {
        return View();
    }

    // Route: example-name/Contact
    [Route]
    public ActionResult Contact()
    {
        ViewBag.Message = "Your contact page.";

        return View();
    }
}

Using the RoutePrefix attribute on top of your controller will allow you to define the route on the entire controller.

As said before, this feature is available natively in MVC 5, if you are using a previous version of MVC you need to add the following NuGet package: AttributeRouting and add the following using in your controller:

using AttributeRouting;
using AttributeRouting.Web.Mvc;

---

If you have another controller called example_name2Controller and you want to add an hyperlink that link to it you can easily do it as follows:

@Html.ActionLink("Go to example-name2", "Index", "example_name2");

You don't need to call an action that will redirect to the example_name2Controller, but if you need to do it in other occasions, you can do it like this:

public ActionResult RedirectToExample_Name2Controller()
{
    return RedirectToAction("Index", "example_name2");
}

Answer 2

You can do this via the Routes.cs

routes.MapRoute(
      name: "Controller",
      url: "example-controller/{action}",
      defaults: new { 
      controller = "ControllerName", action ="Index"
      }   
);

There is also another way, if you look at the answer of this question: How to achieve a dynamic controller and action method in ASP.NET MVC?