Question

When I use the following code:

public HttpResponseMessage Get()
{
    return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK, "Empty!");
}

public HttpResponseMessage Get(int id)
{
    return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK, id);
}

requests work exactly as they should. GET: api/controller returns with the body “Empty!”, and GET: api/controller/12 returns 200 with the body “12”.

But as soon as I change my code to this:

public HttpResponseMessage Get()
{
    return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK, "Empty!");
}

public HttpResponseMessage Get(int itemId) //changed parameter name
{
    return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK, itemId);
}

everything hits the default method and returns “Empty!”

I assumed that this was one of many naming convention matters, but I couldn’t find any documentation or other posts that said the parameters must be named specific values.

It may seem a semantic issue, but I’d like to know why I have to name my parameters specific things, or what I’m doing wrong. Why shouldn’t this simply work?

Answer 1

The convention is defined on the Routing table in RouteConfig.cs, if you change the parameter name, it should be changed accordingly:

 routes.MapHttpRoute(
          name: "DefaultApi",
          routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{itemId}",
          defaults: new { itemId = RouteParameter.Optional }
      );