ASP.NET Core Nested / Tiered Controllers

Question

Hi there fellow Overflowing Stackers! Looking for your help in regards to having tiered or nested controllers in asp.net core

So far from what I can see, the default boilerplate code, and its default route {controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?} only allows for controllers to be in the default Controllers directory, which doesn't allow nesting at all.

From what I have seen thus far there are a few ways to get around this, neither which are ideal in my opinion.

1. Razor View Pages

Out of the box, it would appear that Razor Pages, automatically circumvent this issue as the .net core automatically attempts to traverse the corresponding folder structure from the associated URL structure to attempt to find a .cshtml file that matches the route.

The problem? This is more of an MVVM pattern than an MVC one. Which is the lesser of the 3 evils, in my opinion, (Open to debate ofc)

2. Route Attributes

The other alternative I see is that controllers can be associated with routes using the Route Attribute on Controllers and Actions [Route("parent/route/path")]

The problem? Same namespace (folder) means no reuse of Controller names and given the nature of our app, we need to namespace our Controllers. Not to mention that it's going to make the Controller Folder Massive, with 100's of Controller Files.

3. Adding More Routes

Adding more routes manually is going to be painful, as I have to add a new route for every possible permutation of parent and child within the folder structure.

Whilst I understand that this may be the intended way of doing things. Adding every possible nested folder in a new route is bad design in my opinion. As this is something that can automatically be inferred from the route to the folder structure. And is automatically done in other Languages and Frameworks automatically. (One excellent example C# Class Libraries)

Salt in the Wound

Most importantly it is apparently not possible to have the same named controller in two completely separate folders / routes: How to use same controller name in different namespaces. When this happens you get greeted with an Exception AmbiguousActionException: Multiple actions matched.

The biggest pain point for me is that Namespaces are supported within the normal version of the .NET MVC Framework. For some wonderful reason, the namespace parameter has been removed from the MapRoute() method by someone at Microsoft. Scratching my head as to why that was done?

Not 'Just' a Rant

Before I continue, this post is not me whining or ranting, I am genuinely looking for a better solution and am looking for other ideas and alternatives. Please keep reading for my ideal solution below.

Ideal Solution

Since I have come from a PHP background I have found that simply using the default spl_register_autoloader() gave me exactly what I wanted. The capacity for me to register a specific namespace of my choosing and for PHP to look at any and all parts of the subsequent namespace in the local directory folder structure for the Controller I wanted.

i.e. the PHP controller Controllers\NestingLevel1\NestingLevel2\HomeController would look for the associated controller in Controllers\NestingLevel1\NestingLevel2\HomeController.php

Simple, Beautiful and Did I mention Simple?

Wrap Up

Is there any way I can get Nested Controllers in ASP.NET core without:

1. Razor View Pages (MVVM)
2. Route Attributes on Every Single Nested Controller
3. Manually Adding Routes for Every Possible Nested Parent / Child Combination