How can I return the current action in an ASP.NET MVC view?

Solution 1:

In the RC you can also extract route data like the action method name like this

ViewContext.Controller.ValueProvider["action"].RawValue
ViewContext.Controller.ValueProvider["controller"].RawValue
ViewContext.Controller.ValueProvider["id"].RawValue

Update for MVC 3

ViewContext.Controller.ValueProvider.GetValue("action").RawValue
ViewContext.Controller.ValueProvider.GetValue("controller").RawValue
ViewContext.Controller.ValueProvider.GetValue("id").RawValue

Update for MVC 4

ViewContext.Controller.RouteData.Values["action"]
ViewContext.Controller.RouteData.Values["controller"]
ViewContext.Controller.RouteData.Values["id"]

Update for MVC 4.5

ViewContext.RouteData.Values["action"]
ViewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"]
ViewContext.RouteData.Values["id"]

Solution 2:

Use the ViewContext and look at the RouteData collection to extract both the controller and action elements. But I think setting some data variable that indicates the application context (e.g., "editmode" or "error") rather than controller/action reduces the coupling between your views and controllers.