I am not asking the question that is already asked here:
What is the difference between @PathParam and @QueryParam
This is a “best practices” or convention question.
When would you use @PathParam vs @QueryParam.
What I can think of that the decision might be using the two to differentiate the information pattern. Let me illustrate below my LTPO – less than perfect observation.
PathParam use could be reserved for information category, which would fall nicely into a branch of an information tree. PathParam could be used to drill down to entity class hierarchy.
Whereas, QueryParam could be reserved for specifying attributes to locate the instance of a class.
For example,
/Vehicle/Car?registration=123/House/Colonial?region=newengland
/category?instance
@GET
@Path("/employee/{dept}")
Patient getEmployee(@PathParam("dept")Long dept, @QueryParam("id")Long id) ;
vs /category/instance
@GET
@Path("/employee/{dept}/{id}")
Patient getEmployee(@PathParam("dept")Long dept, @PathParam("id")Long id) ;
vs ?category+instance
@GET
@Path("/employee")
Patient getEmployee(@QueryParam("dept")Long dept, @QueryParam("id")Long id) ;
I don’t think there is a standard convention of doing it. Is there? However, I would like to hear of how people use PathParam vs QueryParam to differentiate their information like I exemplified above. I would also love to hear the reason behind the practice.