.Net Framework API Controller won't recognize Route attributes - asp.net-web-api

Question

I have created an API Controller using .Net Framework as follows:
public class ApplicationUsersController : ApiController
{
[Route("api/ApplicationUser/{username}/{password}")]
[ResponseType(typeof(ApplicationUser))]
public IHttpActionResult GetApplicationUser(string username, string password)
{
ApplicationUser user = new ApplicationUser()
//Code to populate user.
return Ok(user);
}
[Route("api/ApplicationUser/{username}")]
[ResponseType(typeof(ApplicationUser))]
public IHttpActionResult GetApplicationUser(string username)
{
ApplicationUser user = new ApplicationUser()
//Code to populate user.
return Ok(user);
}
// PUT: api/ApplicationUsers/5
[Route("api/ApplicationUser/{username}")]
[ResponseType(typeof(void))]
public IHttpActionResult PutApplicationUser(string username, ApplicationUser ApplicationUser)
{
//Code to update user
return StatusCode(HttpStatusCode.NoContent);
}
// POST: api/ApplicationUsers
[Route("api/ApplicationUser")]
[ResponseType(typeof(ApplicationUser))]
public IHttpActionResult PostApplicationUser(ApplicationUser ApplicationUser)
{
//Code to create new user
return Ok(ApplicationUser);
// return CreatedAtRoute("api/ApplicationUser/{username}", new { username = ApplicationUser.UserName }, ApplicationUser);
}
// DELETE: api/ApplicationUsers/5
[Route("api/ApplicationUser/{username}")]
[ResponseType(typeof(ApplicationUser))]
public IHttpActionResult DeleteApplicationUser(string username)
{
//Code to populate user then delete the record.
return Ok(user);
}
}
When I make a Get call to api/ApplicationUser/{username}/{password}, it works fine. If I make a Post call to api/ApplicationUser, it works fine. If I make a Get, Put or Delete call to api/ApplicationUser/{username}, I get a "not found" error. Is there something else I need to do to make it recognize the route?
Thanks,
Jim
**** Update ****
I have discovered that it will recognize the route as long as the username doesn't end with .something such as .com. The thing is, I am using email addresses as the username. Is there a rule somewhere that a REST url can't end with .somthing? Is there a way around this?

Answer 1

The problem was the format of the parameters. Apparently a url can't end with a .com or other domain suffix. What I did was to convert the parameters to Base64. I created these two extension functions.
public static string ToBase64(this string value)
{
try
{
byte[] bytes = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(value);
return Convert.ToBase64String(bytes);
}
catch (Exception)
{
return value;
}
}
public static string FromBase64(this string value)
{
try
{
byte[] bytes = Convert.FromBase64String(value);
return Encoding.UTF8.GetString(bytes);
}
catch(Exception)
{
return value;
}
}
In the controller, I did something like:
[Route("api/ApplicationUser/{username}")]
[ResponseType(typeof(ApplicationUser))]
public IHttpActionResult GetApplicationUser(string username)
{
username = username.FromBase64();
ApplicationUser user = new ApplicationUser()
//Code to populate user.
return Ok(user);
}
In the client, I did something like:
async Task<ApplicationUser> IApplicationUserService.GetApplicationUser(string username)
{
username = username.ToBase64();
ApplicationUser ret = null;
var response = await _httpClient.GetAsync($"api/ApplicationUser/{username}");
if (response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
{
ret = await JsonSerializer.DeserializeAsync<ApplicationUser>
(await response.Content.ReadAsStreamAsync(), new JsonSerializerOptions() { PropertyNameCaseInsensitive = true });
}
return ret; ;
}
Cheers,
Jim