Question

I have made a web API class for my Customer model. I have the standard methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE). The problem is, I want to implement another GET method which is a search. Something like this:

[HttpGet]
public IEnumerable<Customer> Search(string id)
{
    var customers = customerRepository.Search(id);
    return customers;
}

The search method performs a search based on the account number of my customers, using the .Contains() method.

The problem is, when I navigate to: mySite.com/api/Customers/Search/123 I get a 404. What am I doing wrong here?

Answer 1

As per the default route setup only the standard controller action names are allowed (the RESTful ones and the dispatching is done based on the HTTP verb). If you want to violate the RESTful conventions and use some custom action names then you will have to modify your route setup in order to include the action name in the url: api/{controller}/{action}/{id}. Now you can send a request to /api/Customers/Search/123 which will invoke the Search action on the Customers API controller.