MVC SiteMapProvider allow nodes with same URL

Question

Is there a setting to allow multiple nodes with the same URL? We've setup a small CMS type system where web content admins can add new pages with content and widgets to the website. They sometimes make the mistake of adding the same name to multiple pages under the same parent causing 2 nodes to have the same URL. I would rather not showing and ignoring the duplicate than throwing an exception.

Answer 1

The URL (when supplied) is used as a key of a dictionary. By definition, the key of a dictionary must be unique. Even if the duplicate URL check were removed, the dictionary would throw a more cryptic duplicate key exception.

I would suggest sanitizing the data before reading it with IDynamicNodeProvider or ISiteMapNodeProvider.

Options

1. Add a check to the data entry form to ensure the URL is unique before allowing it to be saved.
2. Put a unique constraint on the URL field in your database to throw an exception upon data entry instead of when it is read.
3. Put a distinct filter in your query so only one of the duplicate URL records is considered when adding them to the SiteMap.
4. Consider using controller, action, and id (from the primary key) when using data-driven URLs. The only thing that really needs to be data-driven are the Routes, and the URLs will be resolved correctly within MvcSiteMapProvider.