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

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"]

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.

To get the current Id on a View:

ViewContext.RouteData.Values["id"].ToString()

To get the current controller:

ViewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"].ToString() 

I saw different answers and came up with a class helper:

using System;
using System.Web.Mvc;

namespace MyMvcApp.Helpers {
    public class LocationHelper {
        public static bool IsCurrentControllerAndAction(string controllerName, string actionName, ViewContext viewContext) {
            bool result = false;
            string normalizedControllerName = controllerName.EndsWith("Controller") ? controllerName : String.Format("{0}Controller", controllerName);

            if(viewContext == null) return false;
            if(String.IsNullOrEmpty(actionName)) return false;

            if (viewContext.Controller.GetType().Name.Equals(normalizedControllerName, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase) &&
                viewContext.Controller.ValueProvider.GetValue("action").AttemptedValue.Equals(actionName, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase)) {
                result = true;
            }

            return result;
        }
    }
}

So in View (or master/layout) you can use it like so (Razor syntax):

            <div id="menucontainer">

                <ul id="menu">
                    <li @if(MyMvcApp.Helpers.LocationHelper.IsCurrentControllerAndAction("home", "index", ViewContext)) {
                            @:class="selected"
                        }>@Html.ActionLink("Home", "Index", "Home")</li>
                    <li @if(MyMvcApp.Helpers.LocationHelper.IsCurrentControllerAndAction("account","logon", ViewContext)) {
                            @:class="selected"
                        }>@Html.ActionLink("Logon", "Logon", "Account")</li>
                    <li @if(MyMvcApp.Helpers.LocationHelper.IsCurrentControllerAndAction("home","about", ViewContext)) {
                            @:class="selected"
                        }>@Html.ActionLink("About", "About", "Home")</li>
                </ul>

            </div>

Hope it helps.

You can get these data from RouteData of a ViewContext

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

In MVC you should provide the View with all data, not let the View collect its own data so what you can do is to set the CSS class in your controller action.

ViewData["CssClass"] = "bold";

and pick out this value from your ViewData in your View

I am using ASP.NET MVC 4, and this what worked for me:

ControllerContext.Controller.ValueProvider.GetValue("controller").RawValue
ControllerContext.Controller.ValueProvider.GetValue("action").RawValue