[c#] Getting absolute URLs using ASP.NET Core

In MVC 5, I had the following extension methods to generate absolute URLs, instead of relative ones:

public static class UrlHelperExtensions
{
    public static string AbsoluteAction(
        this UrlHelper url,
        string actionName, 
        string controllerName, 
        object routeValues = null)
    {
        string scheme = url.RequestContext.HttpContext.Request.Url.Scheme;
        return url.Action(actionName, controllerName, routeValues, scheme);
    }

    public static string AbsoluteContent(
        this UrlHelper url,
        string contentPath)
    {
        return new Uri(url.RequestContext.HttpContext.Request.Url, url.Content(contentPath)).ToString();
    }

    public static string AbsoluteRouteUrl(
        this UrlHelper url,
        string routeName,
        object routeValues = null)
    {
        string scheme = url.RequestContext.HttpContext.Request.Url.Scheme;
        return url.RouteUrl(routeName, routeValues, scheme);
    }
}

What would the equivalent be in ASP.NET Core?

• UrlHelper.RequestContext no longer exists.
• You can't get hold of the HttpContext as there is no longer a static HttpContext.Current property.

As far as I can see, you would now require the HttpContext or HttpRequest objects to be passed in also. Am I right? Is there some way to get hold of the current request?

Am I even on the right track, should the domain now be an environment variable, which is simple appended to the relative URL? Would this be a better approach?

This is a variation of the anwser by Muhammad Rehan Saeed, with the class getting parasitically attached to the existing .net core MVC class of the same name, so that everything just works.

namespace Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc
{
    /// <summary>
    /// <see cref="IUrlHelper"/> extension methods.
    /// </summary>
    public static partial class UrlHelperExtensions
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// Generates a fully qualified URL to an action method by using the specified action name, controller name and
        /// route values.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="url">The URL helper.</param>
        /// <param name="actionName">The name of the action method.</param>
        /// <param name="controllerName">The name of the controller.</param>
        /// <param name="routeValues">The route values.</param>
        /// <returns>The absolute URL.</returns>
        public static string AbsoluteAction(
            this IUrlHelper url,
            string actionName,
            string controllerName,
            object routeValues = null)
        {
            return url.Action(actionName, controllerName, routeValues, url.ActionContext.HttpContext.Request.Scheme);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Generates a fully qualified URL to the specified content by using the specified content path. Converts a
        /// virtual (relative) path to an application absolute path.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="url">The URL helper.</param>
        /// <param name="contentPath">The content path.</param>
        /// <returns>The absolute URL.</returns>
        public static string AbsoluteContent(
            this IUrlHelper url,
            string contentPath)
        {
            HttpRequest request = url.ActionContext.HttpContext.Request;
            return new Uri(new Uri(request.Scheme + "://" + request.Host.Value), url.Content(contentPath)).ToString();
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Generates a fully qualified URL to the specified route by using the route name and route values.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="url">The URL helper.</param>
        /// <param name="routeName">Name of the route.</param>
        /// <param name="routeValues">The route values.</param>
        /// <returns>The absolute URL.</returns>
        public static string AbsoluteRouteUrl(
            this IUrlHelper url,
            string routeName,
            object routeValues = null)
        {
            return url.RouteUrl(routeName, routeValues, url.ActionContext.HttpContext.Request.Scheme);
        }
    }
}

In a new ASP.Net 5 MVC project in a controller action you can still do this.Context and this.Context.Request It looks like on the Request there is no longer a Url property but the child properties (schema, host, etc) are all on the request object directly.

 public IActionResult About()
    {
        ViewBag.Message = "Your application description page.";
        var schema = this.Context.Request.Scheme;

        return View();
    }

Rather or not you want to use this.Context or inject the property is another conversation. Dependency Injection in ASP.NET vNext

If you just want to convert a relative path with optional parameters I created an extension method for IHttpContextAccessor

public static string AbsoluteUrl(this IHttpContextAccessor httpContextAccessor, string relativeUrl, object parameters = null)
{
    var request = httpContextAccessor.HttpContext.Request;

    var url = new Uri(new Uri($"{request.Scheme}://{request.Host.Value}"), relativeUrl).ToString();

    if (parameters != null)
    {
        url = Microsoft.AspNetCore.WebUtilities.QueryHelpers.AddQueryString(url, ToDictionary(parameters));
    }

    return url;
}


private static Dictionary<string, string> ToDictionary(object obj)
{
    var json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(obj);
    return JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Dictionary<string, string>>(json);
}

You can then call the method from your service/view using the injected IHttpContextAccessor

var callbackUrl = _httpContextAccessor.AbsoluteUrl("/Identity/Account/ConfirmEmail", new { userId = applicationUser.Id, code });

I just discovered you can do it with this call:

Url.Action(new UrlActionContext
{
    Protocol = Request.Scheme,
    Host = Request.Host.Value,
    Action = "Action"
})

This will maintain the scheme, host, port, everything.

After RC2 and 1.0 you no longer need to inject an IHttpContextAccessor to you extension class. It is immediately available in the IUrlHelper through the urlhelper.ActionContext.HttpContext.Request. You would then create an extension class following the same idea, but simpler since there will be no injection involved.

public static string AbsoluteAction(
    this IUrlHelper url,
    string actionName, 
    string controllerName, 
    object routeValues = null)
{
    string scheme = url.ActionContext.HttpContext.Request.Scheme;
    return url.Action(actionName, controllerName, routeValues, scheme);
}

Leaving the details on how to build it injecting the accesor in case they are useful to someone. You might also just be interested in the absolute url of the current request, in which case take a look at the end of the answer.

You could modify your extension class to use the IHttpContextAccessor interface to get the HttpContext. Once you have the context, then you can get the HttpRequest instance from HttpContext.Request and use its properties Scheme, Host, Protocol etc as in:

string scheme = HttpContextAccessor.HttpContext.Request.Scheme;

For example, you could require your class to be configured with an HttpContextAccessor:

public static class UrlHelperExtensions
{        
    private static IHttpContextAccessor HttpContextAccessor;
    public static void Configure(IHttpContextAccessor httpContextAccessor)
    {           
        HttpContextAccessor = httpContextAccessor;  
    }

    public static string AbsoluteAction(
        this IUrlHelper url,
        string actionName, 
        string controllerName, 
        object routeValues = null)
    {
        string scheme = HttpContextAccessor.HttpContext.Request.Scheme;
        return url.Action(actionName, controllerName, routeValues, scheme);
    }

    ....
}

Which is something you can do on your Startup class (Startup.cs file):

public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app)
{
    ...

    var httpContextAccessor = app.ApplicationServices.GetRequiredService<IHttpContextAccessor>();
    UrlHelperExtensions.Configure(httpContextAccessor);

    ...
}

You could probably come up with different ways of getting the IHttpContextAccessor in your extension class, but if you want to keep your methods as extension methods in the end you will need to inject the IHttpContextAccessor into your static class. (Otherwise you will need the IHttpContext as an argument on each call)

Just getting the absoluteUri of the current request

If you just want to get the absolute uri of the current request, you can use the extension methods GetDisplayUrl or GetEncodedUrl from the UriHelper class. (Which is different from the UrLHelper)

GetDisplayUrl. Returns the combined components of the request URL in a fully un-escaped form (except for the QueryString) suitable only for display. This format should not be used in HTTP headers or other HTTP operations.

GetEncodedUrl. Returns the combined components of the request URL in a fully escaped form suitable for use in HTTP headers and other HTTP operations.

In order to use them:

• Include the namespace Microsoft.AspNet.Http.Extensions.
• Get the HttpContext instance. It is already available in some classes (like razor views), but in others you might need to inject an IHttpContextAccessor as explained above.
• Then just use them as in this.Context.Request.GetDisplayUrl()

An alternative to those methods would be manually crafting yourself the absolute uri using the values in the HttpContext.Request object (Similar to what the RequireHttpsAttribute does):

var absoluteUri = string.Concat(
                        request.Scheme,
                        "://",
                        request.Host.ToUriComponent(),
                        request.PathBase.ToUriComponent(),
                        request.Path.ToUriComponent(),
                        request.QueryString.ToUriComponent());

You don't need to create an extension method for this

@Url.Action("Action", "Controller", values: null);

• Action - Name of the action
• Controller - Name of the controller
• values - Object containing route values: aka GET parameters

There are also lots of other overloads to Url.Action you can use to generate links.

You can get the url like this:

Request.Headers["Referer"]

Explanation

The Request.UrlReferer will throw a System.UriFormatException if the referer HTTP header is malformed (which can happen since it is not usually under your control).

As for using Request.ServerVariables, per MSDN:

Request.ServerVariables Collection

The ServerVariables collection retrieves the values of predetermined environment variables and request header information.

Request.Headers Property

Gets a collection of HTTP headers.

I guess I don't understand why you would prefer the Request.ServerVariables over Request.Headers, since Request.ServerVariables contains all of the environment variables as well as the headers, where Request.Headers is a much shorter list that only contains the headers.

So the best solution is to use the Request.Headers collection to read the value directly. Do heed Microsoft's warnings about HTML encoding the value if you are going to display it on a form, though.

If you simply want a Uri for a method that has a route annotation, the following worked for me.

Steps

Get Relative URL

Noting the Route name of the target action, get the relative URL using the controller's URL property as follows:

var routeUrl = Url.RouteUrl("*Route Name Here*", new { *Route parameters here* });

Create an absolute URL

var absUrl = string.Format("{0}://{1}{2}", Request.Scheme,
            Request.Host, routeUrl);

Create a new Uri

var uri = new Uri(absUrl, UriKind.Absolute)

Example

[Produces("application/json")]
[Route("api/Children")]
public class ChildrenController : Controller
{
    private readonly ApplicationDbContext _context;

    public ChildrenController(ApplicationDbContext context)
    {
        _context = context;
    }

    // GET: api/Children
    [HttpGet]
    public IEnumerable<Child> GetChild()
    {
        return _context.Child;
    }

    [HttpGet("uris")]
    public IEnumerable<Uri> GetChildUris()
    {
        return from c in _context.Child
               select
                   new Uri(
                       $"{Request.Scheme}://{Request.Host}{Url.RouteUrl("GetChildRoute", new { id = c.ChildId })}",
                       UriKind.Absolute);
    }


    // GET: api/Children/5
    [HttpGet("{id}", Name = "GetChildRoute")]
    public IActionResult GetChild([FromRoute] int id)
    {
        if (!ModelState.IsValid)
        {
            return HttpBadRequest(ModelState);
        }

        Child child = _context.Child.Single(m => m.ChildId == id);

        if (child == null)
        {
            return HttpNotFound();
        }

        return Ok(child);
    }
}