[5.x]: asErrorJson() is deprecated but asFailure() does not behave the same

[jamesmacwhite]

[5.x]: asErrorJson() is deprecated but asFailure() does not behave the same

[jamesmacwhite]

@brandonkelly Ah that's what I'm missing my pattern is off since the changes. asJson() is fine with passing an error key to replicate the same behaviour that asErrorJson() would do. Thanks for taking the time to explain and sticking with me!

[brandonkelly]

A response is definitely returned by asFailure(); it’s just marked with a 400 status code. So you will need to update your client-side logic to handle non-2xx responses.

Alternatively, if you don’t want to change the response behavior, you can start calling asJson() and pass in the error key yourself (which is all that asErrorJson() was doing):

return $this->asJson([
    'error' => 'No param was provided for the request.',
]);

[jamesmacwhite]

@brandonkelly Thanks for the info. The main area I was highlighting was when making a HTTP request to the controller when it was hitting the condition to essentially return a response, with asErrorJson() it was returning the error, with asFailure() it just threw a 404 error, didn't return the message set. I'm aware, that the asFailure() doesn't return the error key, but the 404 response seemed odd.

[brandonkelly]

@jamesmacwhite Did you delete the return statement in the process by chance? You still need to be returning the response:

if (!$param) {
    return $this->asFailure(...);
}

[jamesmacwhite]

@brandonkelly Nope, I was still returning the result. It is odd. I must be missing something obvious, but if I replace asErrorJson() with asFailure() it just doesn't return a 400 response it seems.

[brandonkelly]

Are you 100% sure that that line of code is actually getting executed? Maybe try throwing an exception there instead, and verify that a 500 response comes back.

[jamesmacwhite]

100% sure, here's the controller example:

public function actionMyAction(): ?Response
{
  $param = $this->request->getQueryParam('param');
  if (!param) {
      return $this->asFailure('Missing parameter.');
  }
}

I've done a dd() in the condition where the return statement and confirmed it is being hit. However if I use asFailure() the response ends up being null and 200 OK.

Compared to asErrorJson() which returns the message, but noticed it's not actually a 400 in checking developer tools console, it's a 200 still...

public function actionMyAction(): ?Response
{
  $param = $this->request->getQueryParam('param');
  if (!param) {
      return $this->asErrorJson('Missing parameter.');
  }
}

There's something funky going on with my Craft setup I think...

I could throw a 400 error exception, but I think I'm missing something fundamental, considering the code works on Craft CMS 3.

Ah just noticed the status being 200 is expected per: #3890, but the mystery remains on the asFailure() message not being returned.

[brandonkelly]

Compared to asErrorJson() which returns the message, but noticed it's not actually a 400 in checking developer tools console, it's a 200 still...

That’s expected; asErrorJson() has always returned a 200 response, which is part of the reason we’ve deprecated it and stopped using it in favor of asFailure().

What happens if you do this:

return $this->asErrorJson('Missing parameter.')->setStatusCode(400);

[jamesmacwhite]

That works and throws a 400. I know there's also a hack you can use an event to make it a 400, but changing setStatusCode() is fine.

A bit more debugging, dumping:

dd($this->asErrorJson('Missing Parameter')) returns:

craft\web\Response {#226 ▼
  -_events: []
  -_eventWildcards: []
  -_behaviors: null
  +exitStatus: 0
  +format: "json"
  +acceptMimeType: null
  +acceptParams: []
  +formatters: array:5 [▶]
  +data: array:1 [▶]
  +content: null
  +stream: null
  +charset: "UTF-8"
  +statusText: "OK"
  +version: "1.1"
  +isSent: false
  -_statusCode: 200
  -_headers: yii\web\HeaderCollection {#225 ▶}
  -_cookies: null
  +defaultFormatters: []
  -_isPrepared: false
}

dd($this->asFailure('Missing parameter')) returns

null

This is in a controller for a site request. I'm wondering if that has anything to do with the behaviour being different?

[brandonkelly]

OK, so the issue is that there’s no Accept: application/json header, which is required for asFailure() to return a JSON response.

When you say this is a site request, do you mean you’re accessing the controller action directly from the main browser window? If so, and you are expecting to get a JSON response, and just have that be output in the browser window, you’ll need to call return $this->asJson() yourself, and pass an array with an error key as suggested earlier. You can optionally chain on ->setStatusCode(400) if you want a 400 response code, too.

return $this->asJson([
    'error' => 'No param was provided for the request.',
])->setStatusCode(400);

Or, if this is an Ajax request, then you just need to start sending an Accept: application/json header.

const response = await fetch(url, {
  headers: {
    accept: 'application/json',
  },
  // ...
});

[brandonkelly]

Glad that helped! Sorry, I should have thought about that difference between asFailure() and asJson()/asErrorJson() earlier 🤦‍♂️