A potentially Dangerous Request.Path value was Detected from the client

Question

I’m trying to submit an action with a parameter like this:

 <a href="@Url.Action(@"Create/?reference=01/04/2016", "Cobranca")"

But it generates a URL like this:

Cobranca/Create/%3freference%3d01/04/2016

And causes the mistake:

A potentially dangerous Request.Path value was detected from the client 

I put on the web.config the following codes:

 <pages validateRequest="false" />
 <httpRuntime targetFramework="4.5" requestPathInvalidCharacters="" />
<system.webServer>
    <security>
      <requestFiltering allowDoubleEscaping="true"/>
    </security>

Stopped this error but now from 404 error being that the URL should be:

Cobranca/Create/?reference%3d01/04/2016

or better

Cobranca/Create/?reference=01/04/2016

Answer 1

What is your action Create expect to receive parameter? A string called reference or a Datetime called reference?

Furthermore, it is good practice to use the third parameter of Url.Action() to pass the route values, this way ASP.NET will take charge of mounting the Url and its parameters for you:

<a href="@Url.Action("Create", "Cobranca", new { reference = "01/04/2016"})"/>

If Reference is a date. just replace the fixed string "01/04/2016" with its date.