REST API DESIGN – Getting a resource through REST with different parameters but same url pattern

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In my experience, GET /users/{id} GET /users/email/{email} is the most common approach. I would also expect the methods to return a 404 Not Found if a user doesn’t exist with the provided id or email. I wouldn’t be surprised to see GET /users/id/{id}, either (though in my opinion, it is redundant).

Comments on the other approaches

  1. GET /users/id={id} GET /users/email={email}
    • I don’t think I’ve seen this, and if I did see it, it would be very confusing. It’s almost like it’s trying to imitate query parameters with path parameters.
  2. GET /users?id={id} GET /users?email={email}
    • I think you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned using query parameters for filtering.
    • Would it ever make sense to call this resource with both an id and an email (e.g. GET /users?id={id}&email={email})? If not, I wouldn’t use a single resource method like this.
    • I would expect this method for retrieving a list of users with optional query parameters for filtering, but I would not expect id, email or any unique identifier to be among the parameters. For example: GET /users?status=BANNED might return a list of banned users.

Check out this answer from a related question.

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