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up vote 2 down vote favorite
1

I have an action method that looks like this:

public ActionResult Index(string message)
{
  if (message != null)
  {
    ViewBag.Message = message;
  }
  return View();
}

What happens is that the url of a request to this will look like:

www.mysite.com/controller/?message=Hello%20world

But I want it to look just

www.mysite.com/controller/

Is there a way to remove the query string inside the actionmethod?

share|improve this question
 
are you saying you want a default message when they do not enter a querystring? Or that you want to hide the querystring regardless of the type of message sent on the url initially? –  Erik Funkenbusch Mar 12 '12 at 18:55
 
The second one, basically I want to process the message (it can be anything) and not show it on the url. –  willvv Mar 12 '12 at 19:30
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3 Answers

up vote 5 down vote accepted

No, unless you use a POST method, the information has to get passed somehow. An alternative may be to use an in-between class.

// this would work if you went to controller/SetMessage?message=hello%20world

public ActionResult SetMessage(string message)
{
  ViewBag.Message = message ?? "";
  return RedirectToAction("Index");
}

public ActionResult Index()
{
  ViewBag.Message = TempData["message"] != null ? TempData["message"] : "";
  return View();
}

Or. if you simply used a POST

//your view:
@using(Html.BeginForm())
{
    @Html.TextBox("message")
    <input type="submit" value="submit" />
}


[HttpGet]
public ActionResult Index()
{ return View(); }

[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Index(FormCollection form)
{
  ViewBag.Message = form["message"];
  return View();
}
share|improve this answer
 
Yep, just what I thought. I ended up doing something similar: if (message != null) { TempData["Message"] = message; return RedirectToAction("Index"); } if (TempData.ContainsKey("Message")) { ViewBag.Message = TempData["Message"]; TempData.Remove("Message"); }, which basically saves the message and then reloads the same actionmethod without parameters. –  willvv Mar 12 '12 at 19:28
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up vote 1 down vote

I'm not sure you're really thinking that through. If you remove the query string... then you remove the query string.. ie, your page won't have the query string value to do whatever it needs to do.

There's a bunch of different hacks you could do.. all of them are not ideal. You could use javascript to strip out the query string. You could redirect to a querystring-less page after setting a session variable.. it's all pretty ugly.

Remember that what the user sees in the address bar is on the client. The client controls that. You can fiddle with it via javascript, but doing so is generally a bad idea. Since hiding things from the user can be considered malware-like behavior.

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up vote 1 down vote

Look into routes. They define how a url with parameters will be written.

If you create a new MVC application, and look at the Global.asax.cs file under `RegisterRoutes(). you should see one entry. 

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

Look at each part:

  • "Default" is the name. This just has to be unique for each route you create.
  • "{controller}/{action}/{id}" is the pattern you want to use. example.org/home/index?id=2 will be written example.org/home/index/2 instead
  • new { controller = "home", action = "index", id = UrlParameter.Optional } is defining the defaults if nothing is specified.

So, that route make it so if you go to example.org it will assume you mean example.org/home/index{id is optional}.

Working from that, you can start to see how to create your own routes.

Now, addressing your question the short answer is yes you could make the URL look like that, but not really. You would have to define a route with a default message, and it would only look like that if someone didn't specify a message. You have to tell the controller what the message is. I'm sorry, but the best you can do is define a route that gives you

/message/Hello%20World and using string.replace make that look even nicer `'/message/hello_world'

share|improve this answer
 
He's not trying to add a friendly parameter, he wants to somehow have a querystring value, but not display it at all in the url. –  Erik Funkenbusch Mar 12 '12 at 18:48
 
if you read my whole answer you will see i address that –  Joe Mar 12 '12 at 18:50
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