Multiple HttpRoute in ASP.NET MVC 4 - asp.net-mvc-4

Question

I'm trying to make a RouteConfig in Web API, that allows following patterns:
Patterns:
/api/{controller}
/api/{controller}/{id} (int, optional)
/api/{controller}/{action}
/api/{controller}/{action}/{id} (int, optional)
Use cases:
/api/profile/ (get all profiles)
/api/profile/13 (get profile number 13)
/api/profile/sendemail/ (send email to all profiles)
/api/profile/sendmail/13 (send email to profile number 13)
What I'm trying is the following:
routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "ControllerAndID",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
defaults: null,
constraints: new { id = #"^\d+$" } // Dekkar heiltölur eingöngu í id parameter
);
routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "DefaultApi",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new { action = "Get", id = RouteParameter.Optional }
);
The error I'm getting is:
Multiple actions were found that match the request:
\r\nMinarSidur.Models.DataTransfer.UserProfileDTO sendmail(System.String)
on type
MinarSidur.Controllers.ProfileController\r\nMinarSidur.Models.DataTransfer.UserProfileDTO
sendpaycheck(System.String) on type MinarSidur.Controllers.ProfileController
Can you help me accomplishing this?

Answer 1

Your exception was actually complaining about their being a conflict between these two methods on the Profile controller:
sendpaycheck(string)
sendmail(string)
Not the Get and Get(?); although this would also be an issue.
Really, when carrying out RPC actions that make changes or trigger actions you should use the POST verb. By doing this your routing issues mentioned above should be resolved.
Updated
Have you considered a more resource centric approach to your problem? In all cases here the resource is "Profile" and it appears to have a unique id of x. It appears to also have two other possible unique id's email and ssn?
If these were acceptable URL's to you
http://localhost/api/profile
http://localhost/api/profile/x
http://localhost/api/profile/?email=myemail#x.com
http://localhost/api/profile/?ssn=x
you could use:
public class ProfileController : ApiController
{
public string Get(int id)
{
return string.Format("http://localhost/api/profile/{0}", id);
}
public string Get([FromUri] string email = null, [FromUri] int? ssn = null)
{
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(email))
{
return string.Format("http://localhost/api/profile/?email={0}", email);
}
if (ssn.HasValue)
{
return string.Format("http://localhost/api/profile/?ssn={0}", ssn.Value);
}
return "http://localhost/api/profile";
}
}
With just the standard webapi routing:
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "DefaultApi",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
But
If you did want to carry on with /email and /ssn you may have issues with the email... specifically with the "." in the email address and this can confuse the routing engine... for this to work you must put a trailing slash i.e. http://localhost/api/profile/email/me#me.com/ I think you will find http://localhost/api/profile/email/me#me.com wont work.
This supports:
http://localhost/api/profile
http://localhost/api/profile/x
http://localhost/api/profile/email/myemail#x.com/
http://localhost/api/profile/ssn/x
I would try this and use (NB. the use of the name rpcId to differentiate the routes):
public class ProfileController : ApiController
{
public string Get(int id)
{
return string.Format("http://localhost/api/profile/{0}", id);
}
public string Get()
{
return "http://localhost/api/profile";
}
[HttpGet]
public string Ssn(int rpcId)
{
return string.Format("http://localhost/api/profile/ssn/{0}", rpcId);
}
[HttpGet]
public string Email(string rpcId)
{
return string.Format("http://localhost/api/profile/email/{0}", rpcId);
}
}
My routing would then be:
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "ProfileRestApi",
routeTemplate: "api/profile/{id}",
defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional, Controller = "Profile" }
);
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "PrfileRpcApi",
routeTemplate: "api/profile/{action}/{rpcId}",
defaults: new { Controller = "Profile" }
);

Answer 2

The rules overlap. Would the validation of the Id in routing be a great loss? You could still have the Id parameter as an int within your Get actions. If that's the case I think you can remove ControllerAndID entirely and just use the second which will match all your use cases.