ASP.Net MVC: Create a link method… ie JUST GIVE ME THE STUPID URL

One thing that kind of annoys me is the situation where you just want a url, but you don’t want one of the prepackaged links using:

   Html.RouteLink
Or
   Html.ActionLink

Mostly because you want to be able to create your own html and you only want the created url. Well turns out there’s a method for this: The RouteUrl method on the UrlHelper class. Down side is that it’s not static and takes a few lines to use, so not cool UI design side. Well here’s a method that uses that method and gives you a method to exact a method of victory. I think that sentence had promise, but fell short of complete failure.

Anyways, here it is… The “Just give me the stupid url” method, CreateUrl for short.

        public static String CreateUrl
        (
          RequestContext context,
          RouteCollection routeCollection,
          String routeName,
          String controller,
          String action,
          RouteValueDictionary routeValues
        )
        {
            //Create the helper
            UrlHelper neededHelper = new UrlHelper(context, routeCollection);

            //get the route to check what it is holding at far
            //as defaults go
            var neededRoute = (Route)routeCollection[routeName];

            //this might be overkill honestly.  Basically in case the
            //Route contains the "controller" key only then add it to the
            //values for the route.  Otherwise just ignore.  It's possible
            //someone might pass in a controller/action but the route
            //doesn't take them. At which point you'll
            //be showing the "Aw maaaaan" face.

            if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(controller) && neededRoute.Defaults.ContainsKey("controller"))
            {
                routeValues.Add("controller", controller);
            }

            if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(action) && neededRoute.Defaults.ContainsKey("action"))
            {
                routeValues.Add("action", action);
            }

            //And then the call to create the url string.
            return neededHelper.RouteUrl(routeName, routeValues);
        }

And in use View side:

  <a href="
  <%
  CreateUrl
  (
    Html.ViewContext.RequestContext,
    Html.RouteCollection,
    GeneralConstants.RouteDefault,
    "SomeController",
    "SomeAction",
    new RouteValueDictionary { { "id", 1 } }
  )
  %>"
  >
  Something is linked
  </a>

Now mind you I did use a link there so it seems like a silly example. However, you can do many other things now that you just have the url itself.