ActionLink - strange behaviour when specifying controller name

Question

I have the following extension method:

public static MvcHtmlString GenerateBodyCellContentFor(
    this HtmlHelper helper,
    Goal goal,
    GoalProperty property)
    {
        if (property == GoalProperty.Name)
        {
            return LinkExtensions.ActionLink(
                helper,
                goal.Name,
                "Show",
                new
                {
                    goalId = goal.GoalId
                });
        }

        // rest of the code irrelevant
    }

This works as expected and generates the following link:

http://localhost:54913/Goal/Show?goalId=19013

Due to certain circumstances, I now need to explicitly specify the controller name. So I changed the method to the following:

public static MvcHtmlString GenerateBodyCellContentFor(
    this HtmlHelper helper,
    Goal goal,
    GoalProperty property)
    {
        if (property == GoalProperty.Name)
        {
            return LinkExtensions.ActionLink(
                helper,
                goal.Name,
                "Show",
                "Goal",                           // the only change in code
                new
                {
                    goalId = goal.GoalId
                });
        }

        // rest of the code irrelevant
    }

And the result, to my astonishment, is this:

http://localhost:54913/Goal/Show?Length=4

I tried removing and adding the controller parameter three times, because I could not believe that this actually happens. This is the ONLY change and it causes this behavior.

The length parameter is equal to controller name's length (just checked with a different string).

Do you have any idea what might be going on?

question is similar to this one http://stackoverflow.com/questions/824279/why-does-html-actionlink-render-length-4 — sqladmin, Aug 01 '14 at 15:33
Which [overload](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.mvc.html.linkextensions.actionlink(v=vs.118).aspx) does that call match up with? Doesn't look like it fits.. — DGibbs, Aug 01 '14 at 15:34
@DGibbs Indeed, no overload was fitting the parameters the way I wanted. — user622505, Aug 01 '14 at 15:38
@Lasooch That will probably explain where the `Length` is coming from. — DGibbs, Aug 01 '14 at 15:39
@sqladmin that's helpful, thank you. I'll answer this question in case someone finds it instead of the one you linked. — user622505, Aug 01 '14 at 15:39
I encountered the same problem. Just as perplexed! But your solution also worked for me, so thanks! — Martin Vaughan, Apr 27 '23 at 14:12

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:20

2

As the answers to this question explain, the problem was caused by the fact that none of the overloads matched the way I needed them to. The simplest solution to this problem:

return LinkExtensions.ActionLink(
    helper,
    goal.Name,
    "Show",
    "Goal",
    new
    {
        goalId = goal.GoalId
    },
    null);

edited May 23 '17 at 12:20

Community

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answered Aug 01 '14 at 15:42

user622505

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ActionLink - strange behaviour when specifying controller name

1 Answers1