Comments on: Strategies for resource-based 404 errors in ASP.NET MVC

By: Mazlan

Mazlan — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 02:39:28 +0000

Hy see my answer for MVC 3

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4985550/how-to-return-a-view-for-httpnotfound-in-asp-net-mvc-3/5254840#5254840

By: Richard

Richard — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 23:27:28 +0000

@AndrewO: there is one problem – Application_Error has no access to the current controller context – you cannot easily tell which Controller/Action is being executed, which is desired for nice ASP.NET MVC error logging :)

By: AndrewO

AndrewO — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 10:29:42 +0000

Richard, thanks for your answer. I have some more questions.
In my webapplication I need:
1) as less code to perform errors as possible
2) write error description to log
3) return different result views for different errors:
3.1) error 404
– show 404 page for page request
– show just 404 status for images, css and js-files with no content
3.2) error 401
3.3) error 500
3.4) etc…

So, what do you think, if I:
1) set in web.config (otherwise Application_Error doesn’t fire in Global.asax)
2) put this code in Application_Error

protected void Application_Error(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Exception exception = Server.GetLastError();
HttpException httpException = exception as HttpException;
if (httpException != null)
{
RouteData routeData = new RouteData();
routeData.Values.Add(“controller”, “Error”);
routeData.Values.Add(“action”, “HttpError500″);
if (httpException != null)
{
if (httpException.GetHttpCode() == 404)
{
routeData.Values["action"] = “HttpError404″;
}
}
Server.ClearError();
Response.Clear();
IController errorController = new ErrorController();
errorController.Execute(new RequestContext(new HttpContextWrapper(Context), routeData));
}

}
3) create ErrorController
public ActionResult HttpError500()
{
return View(“Error”);
}
public ActionResult HttpError404()
{
Response.StatusCode = 404;
return View(“Error404″);
}

As you can see, I:
1) doesn’t need to set any [HandleError] attributes
2) have one point to route exceptions
3) doesn’t have problems with rule
routes.MapRoute(“Default”,
“{controller}/{action}/{id}”,
new { controller = “Home”, action = “Index”, id = “” });
4) can write to log when error occurred

By: Richard

Richard — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 20:38:55 +0000

@AndrewO: I think the benefit exceptions bring to your code are more important than the performance hit of using them (see http://www.yoda.arachsys.com/csharp/exceptions2.html). If it is a big problem though (e.g. someone is DDoS’ing your site), you might try something like limiting requests if someone tries to access a non-existent resource 100 times or more.

By: AndrewO

AndrewO — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 10:39:18 +0000

Hello Richard!
Goods solution from one point, but don’t you think that throwing Exception increase server workload?
Just think, what if someone calls your not found url 100 000 times…

So, I think liggett78 right and his solution is best.

By: Richard

Richard — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 04:20:42 +0000

@mctip sure: in the HandleResourceNotFoundAttribute.OnException() method, where it sets up filterContext.Result. Something like:

        ViewDataDictionary viewData = controller.ViewData;
        viewData.Add("Url", filterContext.HttpContext.Request.Url);

        filterContext.Result = new ViewResult()
        {
            TempData = controller.TempData,
            ViewName = View,
            ViewData = viewData
        };

By: mctip

mctip — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 23:12:00 +0000

Richard, is there a way to pass the invalid URL to the ResourceNotFound viewdata?

By: PK

PK — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 13:23:49 +0000

Cheers :)

By: Richard

Richard — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 06:18:03 +0000

PK: File uploaded, see the bottom of the article :)

By: PK

PK — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 03:56:35 +0000

Awesome. Before i posted my comment, i just hard coded in my “ResourceNotFound” view name, but i prefer your way because it’s not tighly coupling it.

Also looking forward to the beta 1 refresh. So far, i’m LOVING this MVC stuff :) (being using it since Preview 2 :)