SpringMVC - dispatcher servler's url pattern style

Question

I am trying to build a restful style API, using springMVC.

When config the url-pattern for springMVC's DispatcherServlet, there seems to have 2 choice, and I need some advice.

Choice A:
config pattern as: <url-pattern>*.action</url-pattern>
and action use path like @RequestMapping("/role/add.action")

Choice B:
config pattern as: <url-pattern>/api/*</url-pattern>
and action use path like @RequestMapping("/api/role/add")

I prefer to use a style that has no suffix, but in that case I need do add a sub path.

But I am not sure which is more proper to use in a project that serve as a backend to provide restful API, with browser / IOS / Android as its client.

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There might be a choice C, but I am not sure:

config pattern as: <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
and action use path like @RequestMapping("/role/add")

In this case built-in servlet will be override, e.g jsp won't work normally.
But I don't have any jsp, and also, static resource like html / js / css / image / document / music / video are all put on another port or server served by nginx, request to tomcat only provide ajax service via json data.
So in this case is it proper to use choice C, or it has some bad side-effects?

Answer 1

if your goal is restful api my choice is the second one since you identify the resource in the url; say you must manage a role resource you should have some mapping like these ones:

@RequestMapping("/api/role" method = RequestMethod.POST)

to insert a new role (may be the api does not allow this)

@RequestMapping("/api/role/{roleId}" method = RequestMethod.PUT)

to update an existing role

@RequestMapping("/api/role/{roleId}" method = RequestMethod.DELETE)

to delete a role

@RequestMapping("/api/role" method = RequestMethod.GET)

to retrieve roles (you may implement some filters via query string)

The same applies for other resources (User, etc) the naming schema is the same.

I vould avoid option C since I think it's best to have a dedicated mapping for the api if you app also ship a web interface that does not use the api

Answer 2

I will go with the Choice B for RESTful services, consider performing CRUD operations using REST. And you can map the url-pattern as ,

config pattern as: <url-pattern>/api/*</url-pattern>

So to perform add , you can just make sure that you post the JSON object from the page and have a url like /api/add

And in case of delete , you can simply follow the same . Consider you are going to delete a object from the list using its id . You can simply make it out as,

/api/delete/${id}

And handle it like ,

@RequestMapping(value="/{id}", method=RequestMethod.GET)