Routing GET and POST routes in ASP.NET MVC 4

Question

I am trying to setup a Login form in an ASP.NET MVC 4 app. Currently, I have configured my view as shown here:

RouteConfig.cs

routes.MapRoute(
  "DesktopLogin",
  "{controller}/account/login",
  new { controller = "My", action = "Login" }
);

MyController.cs

public ActionResult Login()
{
  return View("~/Views/Account/Login.cshtml");
}

[AllowAnonymous]
[ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
public ActionResult Login(LoginModel model)
{
  return View("~/Views/Account/Login.cshtml");
}

When I attempt to visit /account/login in the browser, I receive an error that says:

The current request for action 'Login' on controller type 'MyController' is ambiguous between the following action methods:
System.Web.Mvc.ActionResult Login() on type MyApp.Web.Controllers.MyController
System.Web.Mvc.ActionResult Login(MyApp.Web.Models.LoginModel) on type MyApp.Web.Controllers.MyController

How do I setup a basic form in ASP.NET MVC 4? I've looked at the sample Internet App template in ASP.NET MVC 4. However, I can't seem to figure out how the routing is wired up. Thank you so much for your help.

What are you trying to achieve with your custom route? Whey didn't you leave the default route in place ({controller}/{action}/{id})? The default route should work fine. — Kevin Junghans, Jan 24 '13 at 18:19
@KevinJunghans - In case you didn't notice, his controller name is different from his url — Erik Funkenbusch, Jan 24 '13 at 19:15
What is the `[ViewSettings(Minify = true)]` for? I can't find any reference to this attribute. Is it something you created? — Erik Funkenbusch, Jan 24 '13 at 19:19

score 7 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:47

I haven't tried this yet but can you try annotating your Login actions with the appropriate Http Verb - I'm assuming that you're using a GET for viewing the login page and a POST for processing the login.

By adding [HttpGet] for the first action and [HttpPost] for the second action the theory is that ASP.Net's routing will then know which Action method to call based upon which method has been used. Your code should then look something like this:

[HttpGet] // for viewing the login page
[ViewSettings(Minify = true)]
public ActionResult Login()
{
  return View("~/Views/Account/Login.cshtml");
}

[HttpPost] // For processing the login
[ViewSettings(Minify = true)]
[AllowAnonymous]
[ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
public ActionResult Login(LoginModel model)
{
  return View("~/Views/Account/Login.cshtml");
}

If this doesn't work, consider having two routes and two differently named actions like below:

routes.MapRoute(
   "DesktopLogin",
   "{controller}/account/login",
   new { controller = "My", action = "Login" }
); 

routes.MapRoute(
   "DesktopLogin",
   "{controller}/account/login/do",
   new { controller = "My", action = "ProcessLogin" }
);

There are other similar questions and answers on StackOverflow already, take a look at: How to route GET and DELETE for the same url and there is also the ASP.Net documentation which might also help.

The first is the generally accepted way to handle it, although the `[HttpGet]` is optional, and not needed in most cases. — Erik Funkenbusch, Jan 24 '13 at 19:14

Routing GET and POST routes in ASP.NET MVC 4

1 Answers1