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What is your preferred API error response and why? (lemy.lol)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

29 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I prefer simplicity and using the first example but I'd be happy to hear other options. Here's a few examples:

HTTP/1.1 403 POST /endpoint
{ "message": "Unauthorized access" }

HTTP/1.1 403 POST /endpoint
Unauthorized access (no json)

HTTP/1.1 403 POST /endpoint
{ "error": "Unauthorized access" }

HTTP/1.1 403 POST /endpoint
{
  "code": "UNAUTHORIZED",
  "message": "Unauthorized access",
}

HTTP/1.1 200 (🤡) POST /endpoint
{
  "error": true,
  "message": "Unauthorized access",
}

HTTP/1.1 403 POST /endpoint
{
  "status": 403,
  "code": "UNAUTHORIZED",
  "message": "Unauthorized access",
}

Or your own example.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Respect the Accept header from the client. If they need JSON, send JSON, otherwise don't.

Repeating an HTTP status code in the body is redundant and error prone. Never do it.

Error codes are great. Ensure to prefix yours and keep them unique.

Error messages can be helpful, but often lead developers to just display them in the frontend, breaking i18n. Some people supply error messages in multiple languages, depending on the Accept-Language header.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

This guy backends ☝️

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

but often lead developers to just display them in the frontend

Oh boy I feel this one.
My API is meant for scripting (i.e. it's for developers and the errors are for developers), but the UI team uses it and they just straight display the error from their HTTP request for none technical people which might also not get to know all the parameters actually needed for the request.
And even when the error is in fact in my code, and I sent all the data I need to debug and replicate the error, the users can't tell me because the UI truncates the response, so the user only sees something like Error in pe1uca's API: {"error":"bad request","message":"Your request has an error, please check th... (truncated). So the message gets truncated and the link to the documentation is also never shown .-.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

To be fair if it's an exceptional error message (i.e. database timeout; not incorrect password) I don't think i18n matters that much. Most people will just be googling the error message anyway, and if not it should be rare enough that using Google translate isn't an issue.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

If anything i18n makes things way worse for everyone. Ever tried to diagnose a semi-obscure Windows or Android error on a non-English locale? Pretty sure that's one of the activities in the inner circles of Hell. Bonus points if the error message is obviously machine-translated and therefore semantically meaningless.

Unique error codes fix this if they remain visible to the user, which they usually don't because Mr Project Manager thinks it looks untidy.