ApiController returns 404 when ID contains period

I have an ApiController and I want to use email addresses as the ID parameter for requests:

// GET api/employees/[email protected]
public CompactEmployee Get(string id) {
   var email = id;
   return GetEmployeeByEmail(email);
}

However, I cannot get this to work (returns 404):

http://localhost:1080/api/employees/[email protected]

The following all work:

• http://localhost:1080/api/employees/employee@company
• http://localhost:1080/api/employees/employee@company.
• http://localhost:1080/api/[email protected]

I have set relaxedUrlToFileSystemMapping="true" in my web.config as detailed by Phil Haack.

I would very much love the full email address to work, but any time the period is followed by any other character, the request returns a 404. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Solution

Due to a lack of other options, I've headed in the direction Maggie suggested and used the answer from this question to create a rewrite rule to automatically append a trailing slash when I need an email in the URL.

<system.webServer>
  ....   
  <rewrite>
    <rules>
      <rule name="Add trailing slash" stopProcessing="true">
        <match url="^(api/employees/.*\.[a-z]{2,4})$" />
        <action type="Rewrite" url="{R:1}/" />
      </rule>
    </rules>
  </rewrite>
</system.webServer>

Would adding a trailing slash work for your scenario?

http://localhost:33021/api/employees/[email protected]/

Check your IIS settings:

Home Directory -> Configuration

Edit the .aspx application extension and ensure that the setting Verify that file exists is off.

UPDATE

I've just tested with a default MVC4 Web API project

URL: http://localhost:10983/api/values/[email protected]

Action in ValuesController:

public string Get(string id)
{
    return id;
}

This was the response:

<string xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/">[email protected]</string>

This is what worked for me:

I was running on targetFramework = 4.6.1. I have upgraded to 4.6.2 and added this in web.config:

<system.web>
        <customErrors mode="Off"/>
        <compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.6.2"/>
        <!-- This will allow to search for stuff that contains . & etc.-->
        <httpRuntime targetFramework="4.6.2" maxRequestLength="100000" maxUrlLength="2048" relaxedUrlToFileSystemMapping="true" requestPathInvalidCharacters=""/>
  </system.web>

The requestPathInvalidCharacters="" is to be able to have stuff like & etc in URI, in encoded form, of course.