Routing Razor Pages
By default, if you add a Razor Page to your project's Pages folder, the URL that you use to access that page is based on the Page's file name. So, for example, a Page with the file name CustomerManagement.cshtml is retrieved with the URL http://<server name>/CustomerManagement. There is an exception to this: A Page with the file name Index.cshtml is retrieved with just http://<server name>. This convention extends to subfolders: If that CustomerManagement.cshtml file is in the Pages/Customers folder then its URL is http://<server name>/Customers/CustomerManagement (and Index.cshtml in the same folder has http://<server name>/Customers as its URL).
I have two problems with this. First, the URL http://<server name>/Customers is the same for both a Page in a file named Customers.cshtml directly in the Pages folder and a Page in a file called Index in the Pages/Customers folder. You may say that this problem is one I've created for myself but I'd describe it as an accident waiting to happen ... and, when it does happen, it's a problem that can only be fixed by renaming or moving files. Of course, when you rename or move files, bookmarks all over the world stop working.
This is related to my second problem: Both the names of the files where I keep my code and their location on my Web server's hard disk should be private -- they're nobody's business but my own. Integrating file names and folder locations into your application's UI is the exact opposite of loose coupling, just like incorporating class and method names into your UI.
Fortunately, you have two options to implement loose coupling between URLs and Pages. The option I like is to use the page directive at the top of your Page's cshtml file: Just provide it with a string with an absolute URL that you want to use to access the page.
For example, this line, inside my CustomerManagement.cshtml file, means that the URL for my Page is now http://<server name>/Customers/Manage:
@page "/Customers/Manage"
Alternatively, you can use the AddRazorPagesOptions method when configuring MVC support in your Startup class. This code also establishes http://<server name>/Customers/Manage as the URL for my CustomerManagement Page:
services.AddMvc().AddRazorPagesOptions(options =>
{
options.Conventions.AddPageRoute("/CustomerManagement",
"Customers/Manage");
});
I need to point out, with either of these options, the RedirectToPage method must continue to use the Page's file name:
return RedirectToPage("CustomerManagement");
Posted by Peter Vogel on 03/15/2019