asp.net mvc - How do I generate a webapi url from an MVC view?

Question

Based on How to create ASP.NET Web API Url?

Neither of these plus a few more combinations of them I've tried are working

 <li><a href="@Url.RouteUrl("DefaultApi",new {area=string.Empty,httproute = string.Empty, controller = "corpuserrequest", action="Get"})">CorpUser</a></li>
                        <li><a href="@Url.Action("Get","CorpUserRequest",new {area=string.Empty,httproute ="", controller = "CorpUserRequest", action="Get"})">CorpUser</a></li>

Here's my api config route table:

//https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11407267/multiple-httppost-method-in-mvc4-web-api-controller
        config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
            name: "ApiReq",
            routeTemplate: "webapi/{controller}/{action}",
           defaults: null,
           constraints: new { action = "Req" }
        );

        config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
            name: "DefaultApi",
            routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
            defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional },
            constraints: new
            {
                id = @"^d*$",// Only integers 
                action = "^(?![rR]eq)$" //anything except req or Req
            }
        );

Why isn't the routing working? The RouteUrl returns empty string or null, the Action returns

<a href="http://localhost:11601/CorpUserRequest/Get">

instead of what the actual url should be http://localhost:11601/api/CorpUserRequest

Answer 1

You could use either of the following to generate links to Web API:

1. @Url.HttpRouteUrl("DefaultApi", new {controller = "corpuserrequest"})
2. @Url.RouteUrl("DefaultApi", new { httproute = true, controller = "corpuserrequest"})

Usually you would use option 1., but sometimes you might need to use 2. like in the following post (this post doesn't necessarily use RouteUrl, but the idea is that in places where you do not have a convenient extension like HttpRouteUrl, in this case Html.BeginForm, you can use httproute=true to indicate that you are indeed trying to generate a url to a Web API route)

ASP.Net WebApi: Invalid URL generated in BeginForm