Multiple Get methods in ASP.Net Web API - asp.net-web-api

Question

Hi I've 2 different get methods with the below signature and my routing is as follows:
[ActionName("Data")]
public Dictionary<int, string> GetData(int ID)
{
}
[ActionName("Name")]
public Dictionary<int, string> GetName(int ID)
{
}
var route = routes.MapRoute(
name: "DefaultApi",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
);
But api/{controller}/Data/9 and api/{controller}/Name/10 are both calling the first method GetData.
Can someone please guide me to fix this.

Answer 1

You will have to decorate your controllerclass with the [RoutePrefix("api/ControllerName")] as well as do the following:
[Route("Data")]
public Dictionary<int, string> GetData(int ID)
{
}
[Route("Name")]
public Dictionary<int, string> GetName(int ID)
{
}
var route = routes.MapRoute(
name: "DefaultApi",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
);

Answer 2

You can get a little more fancy with the Route attribute.
[Route("Name/{ThisIsMyIdVariableName}"), HttpGet]
public HttpResponseMessage GetName(int ThisIsMyIdVariableName) { /*code here*/ }
Now you can keep the idea of a pretty url without having to use routes.MapRoute and can call the url like domain.com/Name/19. You can use multiple variable names wrapped with {} in the route and keep your urls pretty and restful when passing multiple variables.
This approach is also very useful if you have the need to version your api controller.

Answer 3

I know this should be a comment instead of an answer, but I don't have the required reputation to comment yet, and I'd like to help. Are both of the above methods returning data based on their id (PK) value? The reason both methods are calling the first method in your Web API server is because they're both appending the same URL extension to the server. A quick and easy way to differentiate these methods could be to change one of the 2 to accept a string that you could then convert back to an int. For instance:
//api/Customer/5
public Dictionary<int, string> GetData(int ID)
{
}
//api/Customer?CustID={custID]
public Dictionary<int, string> GetName(string custID)
{
//convert string to int and continue code
}
This might not be best practice, but this is what I've done in the past when needing to differentiate between GET/POST methods in my web api server. For deserializing, you could use a class like JsonConvert if you're using Json, etc. Then your calls to your controller will add the appropriate URL extensions as defined in the comments I left above the methods. Let me know if you'd like additional explanation.