EpiServer - get absolute friendly url for given culture for page - episerver

Question

I've a following setup in my Manage Websites panel
General Url is set to alloy.com
alloy.no is set for no culture
alloy.se is set for sv culture
alloy.com is set for en culture
In my code, i want to get the friendly external url for given language for given page.
So for Search page I want to get absolute friendly url in all languages.
I use following code to get friendly url for page (found on Anders G. Nordby blog):
var urlResolver = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<UrlResolver>();
var pageAddress = urlResolver.GetUrl(reference, language);
var builder = new UrlBuilder(pageAddress);
Global.UrlRewriteProvider.ConvertToExternal(builder, null, Encoding.UTF8);
var friendlyUrl = builder.Uri.IsAbsoluteUri
? builder.ToString()
: UriSupport.AbsoluteUrlBySettings(builder.ToString());
return friendlyUrl;
It is simple if I will use the alloy.com webpage and in my custom code generate friendly url.
no - alloy.no/søk
se - alloy.se/sök
en - alloy.com/search
But when I use alloy.no to enter edit mode and I will try to generate address for no i get alloy.com/søk when it should be alloy.no/søk.
I found that if I use alloy.no to go to Edit Mode, code :
urlResolver.GetUrl(reference, language)
returns only /søk and code
UriSupport.AbsoluteUrlBySettings(builder.ToString())
add the General URL (alloy.com) instead of alloy.no.
How can I improve this code to take correct host name for page in different culture?

Answer 1

The GetUrl method of the UrlResolver will return a URL to a page that is relative or absolute depending on the current request context. A URL will be relative if the page is located in the current site and absolute if in another site or if the call is made outside a request.
If you are using EPiServer.CMS.Core version 8.0 or later there is also support for identifying one site as the primary site. This update also made it possible to explicitly request that the URL should be to the primary site by setting the ForceCanonical flag on the VirtualPathArguments parameter. If not the flag is not set, it will prefer the current site URL over the primary (given the requested content is located on the current site).
So, with this in mind, you can assume that the returned URL, if not absolute, will be relative to the currently requested site and safely combine it with the currently requested URL such as:
private static string ExternalUrl(this ContentReference contentLink, CultureInfo language)
{
var urlString = UrlResolver.Current.GetUrl(contentLink, language.Name, new VirtualPathArguments { ForceCanonical = true });
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(urlString) || HttpContext.Current == null) return urlString;
var uri = new Uri(urlString, UriKind.RelativeOrAbsolute);
if (uri.IsAbsoluteUri) return urlString;
return new Uri(HttpContext.Current.Request.Url, uri).ToString();
}
In most cases I would probably prefer not to use HttpContext.Current directly and instead pass in the current request URL. But in this case I have opted to use it directly to keep the example more contained.

Answer 2

We have a support case regarding this. We want the url resolver to always return an absolute url when requesting the canonical url. This is our current solution:
public static string ExternalUrl(this PageData p, bool absoluteUrl, string languageBranch)
{
var result = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<UrlResolver>().GetUrl(
p.ContentLink,
languageBranch,
new VirtualPathArguments
{
ContextMode = ContextMode.Default,
ForceCanonical = absoluteUrl
});
// HACK: Temprorary fix until GetUrl and ForceCanonical works as expected,
// i.e returning an absolute URL even if there is a HTTP context that matches the page's
// site definition and host.
if (absoluteUrl)
{
Uri relativeUri;
if (Uri.TryCreate(result, UriKind.RelativeOrAbsolute, out relativeUri))
{
if (!relativeUri.IsAbsoluteUri)
{
var siteDefinitionResolver = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<SiteDefinitionResolver>();
var siteDefinition = siteDefinitionResolver.GetDefinitionForContent(p.ContentLink, true, true);
var hosts = siteDefinition.GetHosts(p.Language, true);
var host = hosts.FirstOrDefault(h => h.Type == HostDefinitionType.Primary) ?? hosts.FirstOrDefault(h => h.Type == HostDefinitionType.Undefined);
var basetUri = siteDefinition.SiteUrl;
if (host != null)
{
// Try to create a new base URI from the host with the site's URI scheme. Name should be a valid
// authority, i.e. have a port number if it differs from the URI scheme's default port number.
Uri.TryCreate(siteDefinition.SiteUrl.Scheme + "://" + host.Name, UriKind.Absolute, out basetUri);
}
var absoluteUri = new Uri(basetUri, relativeUri);
return absoluteUri.AbsoluteUri;
}
}
}
return result;
}

Answer 3

I also ran into this issue when writing a scheduled job running on a multilanguage, multihostname site. In order to get an absolute url with the right hostname in a HttpContext-less situation I had to combine Henrik's code with Dejan's code from here: https://www.dcaric.com/blog/episerver-how-to-get-external-page-url.
This is what I came up with:
public static string ExternalUrl(this ContentReference contentLink, CultureInfo language)
{
var urlString = UrlResolver.Current.GetUrl(contentLink, language.Name, new VirtualPathArguments { ForceCanonical = true });
var uri = new Uri(urlString, UriKind.RelativeOrAbsolute);
if (uri.IsAbsoluteUri) return urlString;
string externalUrl = HttpContext.Current == null
? UriSupport.AbsoluteUrlBySettings(urlString)
: HttpContext.Current.Request.Url.GetLeftPart(UriPartial.Authority) + urlString;
return externalUrl;
}

Answer 4

I've manage to write something base on the Johan & Henry answers:
public static string GetExternalAbsoluteFriendlyUrl(
this ContentReference reference,
string language)
{
var urlResolver = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<UrlResolver>();
var friendlyUrl = urlResolver.GetUrl(reference, language);
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(friendlyUrl))
return friendlyUrl;
var uri = new Uri(friendlyUrl, UriKind.RelativeOrAbsolute);
if (uri.IsAbsoluteUri)
return friendlyUrl;
if (HttpContext.Current != null)
return new Uri(HttpContext.Current.Request.Url, uri).ToString();
var siteDefinitionResolver =
ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<SiteDefinitionResolver>();
var siteDefinition =
siteDefinitionResolver.GetDefinitionForContent(reference, true, true);
return new Uri(siteDefinition.SiteUrl, friendlyUrl).ToString();
}