In ASP.NET 2, how do I create a route that allows lookup of an object (eg Product) by a string id (eg ProductCode)? The route for looking up the same object by it's integer id (eg ProductId) is automatic, so I don't actually know how it works.
The automatic route by id is:
/Product/1
How do I also create a 2nd route that uses a string id?
/Product/red-widget
And how do I do it so that both routes are available?
You should take a look at using a route constraint to do this. See http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/creating-a-route-constraint-cs
routes.MapRoute(
"Product",
"Product/{productId}",
new {controller="Product", action="DetailsByName"},
new {productId = @"\w+" }
);
In the above, the constraint regex "\w+" should limit to routes that match only "word" characters (take a look at regex docs for more details on patterns used here).
