asp.net mvc. Routing and Url building

Question

Does any body knows how to hide some parameters in url?

For example you have a url parameter \"culture\". It can be \"en, fr, it\". By default your site renders in \"en\

Answer 1

The following RouteConstraint might help,

public class CultureConstraint : IRouteConstraint
{
    public bool Match(HttpContextBase httpContext, Route route, string parameterName, RouteValueDictionary values,
                      RouteDirection routeDirection)
    {
        if (routeDirection == RouteDirection.UrlGeneration)
        {
            return values[parameterName] != null &&
                   (route.Defaults[parameterName] == null ||
                    values[parameterName].ToString().ToLower() != route.Defaults[parameterName].ToString().ToLower());
        }
        return true;
    }
}

Use it as,

routes.MapRoute(
    name: "Culture",
    url: "{culture}/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
    defaults: new {culture = "en", controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional},
    constraints: new {culture = new CultureConstraint()}
);

routes.MapRoute(
    name: "Default",
    url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
    defaults: new {controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional}
);

Here the constraint only works on outbound url and discard the route for candidacy when 'culture' in route information equals to default.

I used the simplest implementation because you have not posted your route code, but the idea should work.

hope this helps.