call two different rest methods with same URI - rest

Question

I have two Rest URIs :
// URI n1 : GET /users/{userName}
public ResponseEntity<userDto> findUserByName(
#PathVariable( value = "userName", required = true)
String userName
);
// URI n2 : GET /users/{userID}
public ResponseEntity<userDto> findUserByID(
#PathVariable( value = "userID", required = true)
Long userID
);
When I call GET /users/SuperUser123 I want the first function to respond and when I call GET /users/1854 I want the second one respond. What really happens is that the first function is always called for both cases (as the param is always of type String).
So how can I achieve what I want while respecting REST API URI recommendations ?

Answer 1

It will give ambiguous mapping runtime exception as the url pattern is same for both the methods.
If your url has some pattern like starting for superuser or something then you can use regex patterns to make it work.
In below example first method method will get called if the path variable is a digit otherwise second method for alphabets.you can change regex pattern accordingly.
#RequestMapping("{id:[0-9]+}")
public String handleRequest(#PathVariable("id") String userId, Model model){
model.addAttribute("msg", "profile id: "+userId);
return "my-page";
}
#RequestMapping("{name:[a-zA-Z]+}")
public String handleRequest2 (#PathVariable("name") String deptName, Model model) {
model.addAttribute("msg", "dept name : " + deptName);
return "my-page";
}