How to have DeleteMapping in Spring that deletes based on different types of path variables?

Question

I am trying to build a REST application in Spring where I have a requirement to delete resources on the basis of certain path variables.

For example, I want to delete resource(s) by id

@DeleteMapping("resources/{id}")

or by name

@DeleteMapping("resources/{name}")

But when I do the above, I get the error

java.lang.IllegalStateException: Ambiguous handler methods

As I understand, Servlets can't tell whether 123 in path /resources/123 represents an ID or a name and hence the ambiguity.

How shall then I design my REST endpoint where a DELETE happens based on some parameter or maybe a combination of parameters?

Answer 1

Spring can't distinguish between the two request as your mapping is ambiguous.

You could try using a query parameter for the second request. So it could look like following :

 @DeleteMapping("/hello/{id}")
 public String deleteById(@PathVariable("id") Long id) {
    return "Delete by id called";
 }


  @DeleteMapping("/hello")
  public String deleteByName(@RequestParam(value = "name") String name) {
    return "Delete by name called";
  }

Requests like DELETE http://localhost:8080/hello/1 will be handled by deleteById

Requests like DELETE http://localhost:8080/hello?name=deleteMe will be handled by deleteByName.

Or you could add name query param to the same method and if your query param is not null you could delete by name.