Area controllers are being called from root request - asp.net-mvc-3

Question

I have some area in my ASP.NET MVC3 Application:
namespace MyProject.Areas.myarea
{
public class myareaAreaRegistration : AreaRegistration
{
public override string AreaName
{
get
{
return "myarea";
}
}
public override void RegisterArea(AreaRegistrationContext context)
{
context.MapRoute(
"myarea_default",
"myarea/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
new { action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
}
}
}
this area contains "Hello" controller with "Smile" action.
In global.asax file for whole project I have:
public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{
routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");
routes.MapRoute(
"Default",
"{controller}/{action}/{id}",
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
}
protected void Application_Start()
{
AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();
RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilters.Filters);
RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
}
So, when I request "localhost/myarea/hello/smile" it calls appropriate controller as expected.
BUT! When I request "localhost/hello/smile" it calls hello controller STILL! With that, it looks for the Views not in the myarea/Views folder, but in a ~/Views folder for "root" (non-area) level of project.
How can I fix this, so server will throw an 404 exception, that resource is not found, just like I requested non-existing controller?
UPD: Controllers in area are in namespace:
namespace MyProject.Areas.myarea.Controllers
{
public class HelloController : Controller
...
}
Controllers in "root"-level are in namespace:
namespace MyProject.Controllers
{
public class AnotherRootController : Controller
...
}
So I tried this in global.asax:
public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{
routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");
routes.MapRoute(
"Default",
"{controller}/{action}/{id}",
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
new [] { "MyProject.Controllers" } //Namespace
);
}
I thought this would restrict this route to "root"-level controllers only, since they are in MyProject.Controllers namespace. That DID NOT work. Area-controllers are still being called with request without areaname in it.
May be someone can explain, why?

Answer 1

You could set the UseNamespaceFallback=false datatoken when registering the default route in your Global.asax by restricting it to look only for controllers in the given namespace. You may take a look at the following blog post.
So to put that into action add a namespace restriction to your area registration:
public override void RegisterArea(AreaRegistrationContext context)
{
context.MapRoute(
"myarea_default",
"myarea/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
new { action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
new[] { "MyProject.Areas.myarea.Controllers" }
);
}
and in your Global.asax set the UseNamespaceFallback data token to false when registering the default route in order to constrain it to the given namespace:
public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{
routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");
routes.MapRoute(
"Default",
"{controller}/{action}/{id}",
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
new[] { "MyProject.Controllers" }
).DataTokens["UseNamespaceFallback"] = false;
}