ganomede-errors

Ganomede's extended restify errors

The way to distinguish our app's logic-level errors from others. (Like socket hang up vs user already exists.)

Basic Usage

The idea is to create error classes like UserNotFoundError extends GanomedeError, define appropriate statusCode and message on it with optional params, and return those from lower-level places.

//
// Database.js
//

class Db {
  getDocument (id, callback) {
    this.redis.get(id, (err, reply) => {
      // Propagate "fundamental" errors.
      if (err)
        return callback(err);

      // Wrap app-level errors into more meaningful objects.
      if (reply === null)
        return callback(new Db.DocumentNotFoundError({id}));

      callback(null, reply);
    });
  }
}

Db.DocumentNotFoundError = class DocumentNotFoundError extends GanomedeError {
  constructor (query) {
    super('No documents matching `%j`', query);
    this.severity = 'info';
    this.statusCode = 404;
  }
};

In app-code, make use of more meaningful errors and act accordingly.

//
// app.js
//

app.get('/users/:id', (req, res) => {
  db.getDocument(`users:${req.params.id}`, (err, user) => {
    if (err instanceof Db.DocumentNotFoundError) {
      // This will:
      //   - call `logger[err.severity]` with approprite message;
      //   - call `next(toRestError(err))`.
      //
      // Resulting in HTTP response will have appropriate status code (`err.statusCode`)
      // and contain JSON body:
      //
      // { // `error.name` (default is `error.constructor.name`)
      //   "restCode": "DocumentNotFoundError",
      //
      //   // `error.statusCode`,
      //   "statusCode": 404,
      //
      //   // `error.message`
      //   "message": "No documents matching `{\"id\": \"users:4\"}`"
      // }
      return sendHttpError(logger, next, err);
    }
    else if (err) {
      // Same as above, except log level is "error"
      // and `next` will receive restify.InternalServerError instance
      // (which `next` already knows how to upcast to `RestError`).
      return sendHttpError(logger, next, new restify.InternalServerError());
    }

    res.json(user);
  });
});

It can also be sometimes useful to have more granular error classes.

//
// Orm.js
//

const findUser = (userId, callback) => {
  new Db().getDocument(userId, (err, json) => {
    if (err instanceof Db.DocumentNotFoundError) {
      // here we now what missing document means
      // (and DB knows how to distinguish missing document errors
      // from, say, "cannot connect to hostname")
      return callback(new UserNotFoundError(userId));
    }
    else if (err)
      return callback(err);

    callback(null, json);
  });
};

Included Errors

Some situations are quite common, so error classes for them with appropriate severity levels, status codes and names are already included.

Class Name (as exported)	HTTP Status	Rest Code	Message	Severity
InvalidAuthTokenError	401	'InvalidAuthTokenError'	Invalid auth token	severity.info
InvalidCredentialsError	401	'InvalidCredentialsError'	Invalid credentials	severity.info
RequestValidationError	400	First argument passed to constructor	Rest of constructor arguments	severity.info

if (!req.params.token)
  return sendHttpError(logger, next, new InvalidAuthTokenError());

if (req.headers['Authorization'] !== 'Bearer 0xdeadbeef')
  return sendHttpError(logger, next, new InvalidCredentialsError());

if (typeof req.body.message !== 'string')
  return sendHttpError(logger, next, new RequestValidationError(
    'BadMessage',
    'Message must be a string, got `%s`', typeof req.body.message
  ));