Using Html.BeginForm() with custom routes

Question

This is as you surely know the default route:

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

Let's say I use the BeginForm() method like this:

@using (Html.BeginForm("MyAction", "MyController", new { id = 4 }))

This will render the following form tag:

<form method="post" action="/MyController/MyAction/4">

Now, let's say I've made a custom route:

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

When I create a form I'd like it to look like this:

<form method="post" action="/MyController/4/MyAction">

However, if I use BeginForm() as in the example above, I will get a url that matches the default route instead. Is there a way to tell BeginForm() to use my custom route instead of the default one when creating the url for the action? Or does BeginForm() always produce urls that follows the default route pattern?

I'm using asp.net mvc 3 if it matters.

Answer 1

You can use the Html.BeginRouteForm() method from the HtmlHelper class.

@Html.BeginRouteForm("MyCustomRoute", 
   new { controller = "MyController", action = "MyAction" })

Answer 2

The reason for that is that the routing system picks the first route that matches to build the route. So to circumvent this issue you could reorder your routes but that is quite fragile.

Since the BeginForm method does not add much value you could use the the HTML form element to construct your form and build the action via a @Url.RouteUrl() somehow like this

@Url.RouteUrl("MyCustomRoute", new { controller = "MyController", action = "MyAction" })

Note that I'm using a named route here!