ASP.NET MVC Url Route supporting (dot)

Question

I hope that you can help me with the below problem.

I am using ASP.NET MVC 3 on IIS7 and would like my application to support username\'s with dots.

Example:

Answer 1

For anyone getting an 'Cannot create abstract class' exception when using the UrlRoutingHandler approach, it's likely due to:

• Using a restricted 'path' (e.g. path="/Files/*") in your web.config declaration, and
• A folder/path with the same name exists in your project

Answer 2

I don't think the dot is the problem here. AFAIK the only char that should not be in the user name is a /

Without seeing the route that matches john.lee/details it's hard to say what's wrong, but I'm guessing that you have another route that matches the url, preventing the user details route from being matched correctly.

I recommend using a tool like Glimpse to figure out what route is being matched.

Answer 3

I was facing the same issue. So the best solution for me is:

<system.webServer>
    <modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true"></modules>
<system.webServer>

Answer 4

Just add this section to Web.config, and all requests to the route/{*pathInfo} will be handled by the specified handler, even when there are dots in pathInfo. (taken from ServiceStack MVC Host Web.config example and this answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/12151501/801189)

This should work for both IIS 6 & 7. You could assign specific handlers to different paths after the 'route' by modifying path="*" in 'add' elements

  <location path="route">
    <system.web>
      <httpHandlers>
        <add path="*" type="System.Web.Handlers.TransferRequestHandler" verb="GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG,PUT,DELETE,PATCH,OPTIONS" />
      </httpHandlers>
    </system.web>
    <!-- Required for IIS 7.0 -->
    <system.webServer>
      <modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true" />
      <validation validateIntegratedModeConfiguration="false" />
      <handlers>
        <add name="ApiURIs-ISAPI-Integrated-4.0" path="*" type="System.Web.Handlers.TransferRequestHandler" verb="GET,HEAD,POST,DEBUG,PUT,DELETE,PATCH,OPTIONS" preCondition="integratedMode,runtimeVersionv4.0" />
      </handlers>
    </system.webServer>
  </location>

Answer 5

Add a UrlRoutingHandler to the web.config. This requires your url to be a bit more specific however (f.e. /Users/john.lee). This forces every url starting with /Users to be treated as a MVC url:

<system.webServer>    
  <handlers>      
    <add name="UrlRoutingHandler" 
         type="System.Web.Routing.UrlRoutingHandler, 
               System.Web, Version=4.0.0.0, 
               Culture=neutral, 
               PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" 
         path="/Users/*" 
         verb="GET"/>      
  </handlers>
</system.webServer>