Spring mvc @PathVariable

suppose you want to write a url to fetch some order, you can say

www.mydomain.com/order/123

where 123 is orderId.

So now the url you will use in spring mvc controller would look like

/order/{orderId}

Now order id can be declared a path variable

@RequestMapping(value = " /order/{orderId}", method=RequestMethod.GET)
public String getOrder(@PathVariable String orderId){
//fetch order
}

if you use url www.mydomain.com/order/123, then orderId variable will be populated by value 123 by spring

Also note that PathVariable differs from requestParam as pathVariable is part of URL. The same url using request param would look like www.mydomain.com/order?orderId=123

API DOC
Spring Official Reference

If you have url with path variables, example www.myexampl.com/item/12/update where 12 is the id and create is the variable you want to use for specifying your execution for instance in using a single form to do an update and create, you do this in your controller.

   @PostMapping(value = "/item/{id}/{method}")
    public String getForm(@PathVariable("id") String itemId ,  
        @PathVariable("method") String methodCall , Model model){

     if(methodCall.equals("create")){
            //logic
      }
     if(methodCall.equals("update")){
            //logic
      }

      return "path to your form";
    }

@PathVariable used to fetch the value from URL

for example: To get some question

www.stackoverflow.com/questions/19803731

Here some question id is passed as a parameter in URL

Now to fetch this value in controller all you have to do is just to pass @PathVariable in the method parameter

@RequestMapping(value = " /questions/{questionId}", method=RequestMethod.GET)
    public String getQuestion(@PathVariable String questionId){
    //return question details
}

Have a look at the below code snippet.

@RequestMapping(value="/Add/{type}")
public ModelAndView addForm(@PathVariable String type) {
    ModelAndView modelAndView = new ModelAndView();
    modelAndView.setViewName("addContent");
    modelAndView.addObject("typelist", contentPropertyDAO.getType() );
    modelAndView.addObject("property", contentPropertyDAO.get(type,0) );
    return modelAndView;
}

Hope it helps in constructing your code.