Path parameters should not include periods

[kitgrose]

I have a web service I'm trying to connect to that provides its response based on the extension passed in via the URL (e.g. .xml or .json), rather than the Accept HTTP header.

When passing path parameters in the URL, the path looks like /get_item/:item_id.xml, but Insomnia treats item_id.xml as the name of the parameter.

Ideally this would just work, with the . functioning like a / in ending the path parameter token name, but failing that it would be nice if there was some optional way to forcibly indicate the end of a parameter name (e.g. /get_item/:{item_id}.xml or similar), to allow these kinds of URLs to be modelled with path parameters.

In the meantime my workaround has been to use an unchecked query parameter, then set the URL in Insomnia to /get_item/{% request 'parameter', 'item_id', 0 %}.xml, but unchecked parameters feel much less appropriate than path parameters for this purpose.

[poojithap11]

Hi,

Could you try using the latest version of insomnia and let me know if you're still facing the same issue?

You can directly add /:item_id in the url and give the value in the path parameter value field.

Thank you.

[kitgrose]

I've finally had a chance to check this and the latest version still does the same thing.

You're right that I could add the extension in the parameter value, but that makes it trickier to use the result of other queries to populate the path parameter value (and it makes it too easy for us to forget to supply the extension if we change the value).

To me, the file extension is part of the API definition and therefore belongs in the URL bar, not part of the submission (a query string parameter or equivalent). I could probably argue that the file extension could be an additional path parameter for some APIs that can return different file types based on the extension (e.g. /get_item/:{item_id}.:file_extension) rather than varying based on the Accept header.