Badge field 'type' is not 'required', but the request fails if it's not supplied #90

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1. SueSmith commented on May 28, 2014

   

   SueSmith

   on May 28, 2014

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   I'm working through the docs at the moment here https://github.com/mozilla/badgekit-api/tree/doc-updates/docs

   Funnily enough I came across this one myself earlier.. Not sure if it's meant to be required or not but will need to check on it and various other things I'm not sure about 😉

   Hoping to get through all of the endpoints within the next few days so the docs on the master branch should be updated and a lot more detailed then..
2. tgs commented on May 28, 2014

   

   tgs

   on May 28, 2014

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   Thanks! To clarify, it should be listed both in the documentation, and in the error-checking routines in the code. For instance, if you leave out 'earnerDescription' and 'consumerDescription', the server gives you back a 'ValidationError' code and a 'details' list that tells you which fields were missing.
3. SueSmith commented on May 28, 2014

   

   SueSmith

   on May 28, 2014

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   Ah cool, thanks for clarifying.
4. SueSmith

   added a commit that references this issue on May 28, 2014

   Update badges.md

   27e3a47
5. cmcavoy commented on Jun 6, 2014

   

   cmcavoy

   on Jun 6, 2014

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   Docs updated in #91.
6. cmcavoy

   closed this as completedon Jun 6, 2014
7. tgs commented on Jun 9, 2014

   

   tgs

   on Jun 9, 2014

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   Thanks for updating the docs! Unfortunately, this is still only half-fixed.

   When I try to create a badge that's missing another field, like consumerDescription, I get back an HTTP 400, Bad Request, and a nice JSON error that looks like this:

   {
      "details" : [
         {
            "value" : "",
            "field" : "consumerDescription"
         }
      ],
      "message" : "Could not validate required fields",
      "code" : "ValidationError"
   }
   

   As an author of a client library, I can format that into an Exception that lists the missing fields, and the user of my client can presumably do something intelligent with this, like show an error message on the relevant form field.

   By contrast, when I try to create a badge that's missing the type field, I get an HTTP 500, and this response:

   {"message": "ER_BAD_NULL_ERROR: Column 'type' cannot be null"}
   

   This indicates that the missing field is not being caught by the validation layer, but makes it all the way to the database before being noticed. So the JS representation of what fields are required doesn't match the database. I can't make as useful an Exception from this, and the 500 error code means "something went wrong with the server", so it's not as obvious that the request was the problem.

   Honestly, this is not a big problem for me, because I don't expect to be making badges in my application. So don't prioritize it on my behalf, but it might still be a good opportunity to make sure the validation routines match the database's expectations.
8. cmcavoy commented on Jun 10, 2014

   

   cmcavoy

   on Jun 10, 2014

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   Thanks @tgs this also points out that we need to standardize error
   responses.

   On Mon, Jun 9, 2014 at 12:01 PM, Thomas Smith notifications@github.com
   wrote:

   Thanks for updating the docs! Unfortunately, this is still only half-fixed.

   When I try to create a badge that's missing another field, like
   consumerDescription, I get back an HTTP 400, Bad Request, and a nice JSON
   error that looks like this:

   {
   "details" : [
   {
   "value" : "",
   "field" : "consumerDescription"
   }
   ],
   "message" : "Could not validate required fields",
   "code" : "ValidationError"
   }

   As an author of a client library, I can format that into an Exception that
   lists the missing fields, and the user of my client can presumably do
   something intelligent with this, like show an error message on the relevant
   form field.

   By contrast, when I try to create a badge that's missing the type field,
   I get an HTTP 500, and this response:

   {"message": "ER_BAD_NULL_ERROR: Column 'type' cannot be null"}

   This indicates that the missing field is not being caught by the
   validation layer, but makes it all the way to the database before being
   noticed. So the JS representation of what fields are required doesn't match
   the database. I can't make as useful an Exception from this, and the 500
   error code means "something went wrong with the server", so it's not as
   obvious that the request was the problem.

   Honestly, this is not a big problem for me, because I don't expect to be
   making badges in my application. So don't prioritize it on my behalf, but
   it might still be a good opportunity to make sure the validation routines
   match the database's expectations.

   —
   Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
   #90 (comment).