MVC2 Routing with WCF ServiceRoute: Html.ActionLink rendering incorrect links!

Question

I have a WCF service that lives side-by-side with an MVC2 web site. I'd like for my URL for the service to look like this:

http://localhost/projdir/Service

The MVC site is in its infancy so it still has all its boilerplate controllers etc.

The following code works at first glance in global.asax:

public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{
    routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

    routes.Add(new ServiceRoute("Service", new ServiceHostFactory(), 
               typeof(MyService)));

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

The service appears just where I described and works as advertised. Great.

However, I just noticed that ordering my code this way changes all of my ActionLink's. For example, the "About" tab on the MVC site now appears like this:

http://localhost/projdir/Service?action=About&controller=Home

This is obviously incorrect (it should be http://localhost/projdir/Home/About/ ).

If I move the ServiceRoute addition below the default MapRoute() call, then I get a missing controller error. (Actually I get a "StructureMapControllerFactory did not return an instance of a controller" error, because I'm wired up with StructureMap, duh, it's not a controller to begin with.)

Interestingly, it only seems to be affecting the output of Html.ActionLink(). I can manually type in http://localhost/projdir/Home/About/ and get to the correct page.

What horribly obvious newbie mistake am I making?

Answer 1

Try moving the Service route after the MVC route. But to avoid the "missing controller" error that you got before, add the MVC route with a Route Constraint. These route constraints can be Regex - basically you'd want your route constraint to be any controller that is not "Service". When a request for "Service" is requested, it will make it fall through and his the WCF Service Route.

Answer 2

I resolved with that:

     routes.MapRoute(
             "Default", // Route name
             "{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
             new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
             new { controller = "^(?!api).*" }
        );
        routes.Add(new ServiceRoute("api", new DataServiceHostFactory(), typeof(dwService)));

I hope this good for you

Answer 3

Another solution is to inherit the ServiceRoute and override the GetVirtualPath method to return null as described here

public class AppServiceRoute : ServiceRoute
{
    public AppServiceRoute(string routePrefix, ServiceHostFactoryBase serviceHostFactory, Type serviceType)
        : base(routePrefix, serviceHostFactory, serviceType)
    {
    }

    public override VirtualPathData GetVirtualPath(RequestContext requestContext, RouteValueDictionary values)
    {
        return null;
    }
}

This way, reverse route mapping never select this route for any Action. Works like a charm