Mastering ASP.NET Web API

Template-based Routing

When working with web APIs, you would have come across many varieties of URIs such as /product/12, /product/12/orders, /departments/, /books, and so on.

In the web API world, they are known as Route--a string describing a URI template. For example, a sample route can be formed on this URI pattern: /products/{id}/orders.

There are few points to observe here:

• A URI template consists of literals and parameters
• Products and orders are literals in the preceding sample example
• Anything in curly braces { } is known as parameters--{id} is one such example
• A path separator (/) has to be a part of a route template--The URIs understand / as path separators
• The combination of literals, path separator, and parameters should match ...