RedirectToAction usage in asp.net mvc - asp.net

Question

I want to post some questions about ASP.Net MVC. I am not familiar with web developing, But I was assigned to the web part of a project. We are doing the following: first, we create get & set properties for the person data:
public class Person
{
public int personID {get;set;}
public string personName {get;set;}
public string nric {get;set;}
}
and after login, we put the data in a class Person object and we use RedirectToAction like this:
return RedirectToAction("profile","person",new { personID = Person.personID});
It's working normally, but the parameter are shown in the URL. How can I hide them and also
can I hide the action name? Guide me the right way with some examples, please.

Answer 1

The parameter are shown in the URL because that is what the third parameter to RedirectToAction is - the route values.
The default route is {controller}/{action}/{id}
So this code:
return RedirectToAction("profile","person",new { personID = Person.personID});
Will produce the following URL/route:
/Person/Profile/123
If you want a cleaner route, like this (for example):
/people/123
Create a new route:
routes.MapRoute("PersonCleanRoute",
"people/{id}",
new {controller = "Person", action = "Profile"});
And your URL should be clean, like the above.
Alternatively, you may not like to use ID at all, you can use some other unique identifier - like a nickname.
So the URL could be like this:
people/rpm1984
To do that, just change your route:
routes.MapRoute("PersonCleanRoute",
"people/{nickname}",
new {controller = "Person", action = "Profile"});
And your action method:
public ActionResult Profile(string nickname)
{
}
And your RedirectToAction code:
return RedirectToAction("profile","person",new { nickname = Person.nickname});
Is that what your after?

Answer 2

If you don't want the parameter to be shown in the address bar you will need to persist it somewhere on the server between the redirects. A good place to achieve this is TempData. Here's an example:
public ActionResult Index()
{
TempData["nickname"] = Person.nickname;
return RedirectToAction("profile", "person");
}
And now on the Profile action you are redirecting to fetch it from TempData:
public ActionResult Profile()
{
var nickname = TempData["nickname"] as string;
if (nickname == null)
{
// nickname was not found in TempData.
// this usually means that the user directly
// navigated to /person/profile without passing
// through the other action which would store
// the nickname in TempData
throw new HttpException(404);
}
return View();
}
Under the covers TempData uses Session for storage but it will be automatically evicted after the redirect, so the value could be used only once which is what you need: store, redirect, fetch.

Answer 3

this may be solution of problem when TempData gone after refresh the page :-
when first time you get TempData in action method set it in a ViewData & write check as below:
public ActionResult Index()
{
TempData["nickname"] = Person.nickname;
return RedirectToAction("profile", "person");
}
now on the Profile action :
public ActionResult Profile()
{
var nickname = TempData["nickname"] as string;
if(nickname !=null)
ViewData["nickname"]=nickname;
if (nickname == null && ViewData["nickname"]==null)
{
throw new HttpException(404);
}
else
{
if(nickname == null)
nickname=ViewData["nickname"];
}
return View();
}

Answer 4

Temp data is capable of handling single subsequent request. Hence, value gone after refresh the page. To mitigate this issue, we can use Session variable also in this case. Try below:
public ActionResult Index(Person _person)
{
Session["personNickName"] = _person.nickName;
return RedirectToAction("profile", "person");
}
And in "profile" actionmethod:
public ActionResult profile()
{
Person nickName=(Person)Session["personNickName"];
if(nickName !=null)
{
//Do the logic with the nickName
}
}