asp.net webapi url to identify same resource

Question

I want to be able to identify a resource by different id types. for example:

GET http://example.com/customers/internalId=34 to go to

public Customer GetByInternalId(int internalId){...}

and GET http://example.com/customers/externalId='JohnDoe' to go to

public Customer GetByExternalId(string externalId){...}

I know I can do this by having some parsing logic in a generic controller method but I don't want to do that. How do I achieve this using the routing feature of asp.net webapi if that is possible.

Darrel Miller · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-19 01:43:31Z

1

I would suggest that you try and avoid doing what you are suggesting. Creating two distinct URIs for the same resource will make it harder to use caching. Instead I would suggest using one URL to redirect to the other.

e.g.

> GET /customers/34
< 200 OK


> GET /Customers?name=JohnDoe
< 303 See Other
< Location: http://example.com/customers/34

answered Mar 19, 2013 at 1:43

Darrel Miller

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2 Comments

darthjit Over a year ago

Thanks Darren. I've seen that answer before. I am trying to do what linked in does here:developer.linkedin.com/documents/profile-api and would like to know if such routing is possible with WebApi.

Darrel Miller Over a year ago

@darthjit For sure it is possible with WebAPI because you can replace the routing component and implement it yourself. Whether existing routing mechanism can do it, I don't know because I would never attempt to do such a thing. Using the tilde to return the "current profile" is an especially dumb thing for Linked in to do.

Admir Tuzović · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-19 14:09:25Z

0

Your methods do not make much of a sense, why would you return void from a method that begins with Get....?

Also, these routes:

http://example.com/customers/internalId=34
http://example.com/customers/externalId='JohnDoe

Are invalid from MVC/Web API perspective. This is how they should look like:

http://example.com/customers?internalId=34
http://example.com/customers?externalId=John

Default Web API routing should differentiate between the two and route it to different actions.

EDIT:

Create action with the following template:

[HttpGet]
public string InternalId(int id)
{
    return id.ToString();
}

Define route for Web Api:

    config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
        name: "Weird",
        routeTemplate: "{controller}/{action}={id}",
        defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
        );

This allows you to write:

http://localhost:7027/values/internalId=12

Try it...

Then you can just add another method:

[HttpGet]
public string ExternalId(string id)
{
    return id;
}

And this:

http://localhost:7027/values/externalId=bob

Will work as well.

Clearly name of my controller is ValuesController as I've just tested this with default Web Api template.

edited Mar 19, 2013 at 14:09

answered Mar 18, 2013 at 21:35

Admir Tuzović

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2 Comments

darthjit Over a year ago

Thanks for pointing out the error in methods. While I realize that query strings will work, that is not what I am looking for. I would like to do what linked in has done here: developer.linkedin.com/documents/profile-api , api.linkedin.com/v1/people/id=abcdefg , api.linkedin.com/v1/people/url=<public-profile-url>

Admir Tuzović Over a year ago

I've updated my post with how you can do what you're trying to do. I believe you'll get the idea if you pay close attention to the route I've defined.

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