AEM/Sling: How do I implement dynamic sling selector? - aem

Question

TLDR: I want setup an AEM page that accepts firstname and lastname as parameter using an SEO friendly URL.
Going to www.host.com/mycontent.richard.williams.html will display information relevant to Richard Williams.
If I go to www.host.com/mycontent.john.smith.html, the page will display information relevant to John Smith.
SEO friendly example: www.host.com/mycontent.richard.williams.html
not SEO friendly example: www.host.com/mycontent.html?firstname=richard&lastname=williams
So I've been following this guide (not sure if this is the best example/guide to help me): http://www.aemcq5tutorials.com/tutorials/sling-servlet-in-aem/
And while it works well for my the example
#SlingServlet(resourceTypes="geometrixx/components/hompepage", selectors={"firstname","lastname"}, extensions="html",methods="GET", metatype=true)
I am trying to make it dynamic.
At the moment, I can only access the servlet if access via: http://localhost:4502/content/geometrixx/en.firstname.lastname.html
I want to make firstname and lastname dynamic parameters/selectors. Like if for example I want to pass the values "richard.williams", I can then use: http://localhost:4502/content/geometrixx/en.richard.williams.html
if I try to use http://localhost:4502/content/geometrixx/en.richard.williams.html right now, I get a blank page.
So basically I want to use selectors for passing parameter values to my page.
Any ideas how this can be done?
ps. At the moment, I only testing/experimenting in my local instance of AEM.

Answer 1

Selectors in sling don't provide the functionality of placing variables in the URL path. i.e. you cannot add {pathParam} like in Spring to sling servlet URL.
In general, selectors are not recommended to be used like an input to a function. They are to be used more like file extensions.
For eg. A request to /mycontent.html returns the same resource as /mycontent.mobile.html. The only difference being, the latter requests for a mobile friendly version.
Request params on the other hand serve the purpose of providing inputs to the servlet.
I cannot think of any direct way to attach a servlet to dynamic paths in sling. You can try using suffix, they are cacheable in the dispatcher, but I can't comment on the SEO friendliness of using suffix.
Consider this URI - /mycontent/user.json/john/smith
Register a servlet using the path /mycontent/user and you can use
String[] names = request.getRequestPathInfo().getSuffix().split(suffix, '/')
to retrieve the suffix contents.
Take a look at answers in this question. Sling ResourceProvider and integrating with jax-rs are other ways you can accomplish this.

Answer 2

Technically this would be feasible with the use of OptingServlet (see https://sling.apache.org/documentation/the-sling-engine/servlets.html#optingservlet-interface)
Your accepts method could easily recognise the expected resourceType and react appropriately.
As mentioned in the docs this approach is discouraged and the solution proposed by Subhash to use suffixes seems way more elegant.

Answer 3

You can create a components which reads selector from the request and add that compoent to en.html