Api::decode() fails when parsing result of Request::HEAD request

[xmojmr]

The function throws "Decoded JSON is not an array or object." at https://github.com/milo/github-api/blob/v1.4.0/src/Github/Api.php#L257 because the actual value of $contents is "" and it does not match is_array() test neither the is_object() test.

I want to issue a Request::HEAD - style request and call some generic GitHub error handler before running my code. How can I do it? Is behavior of decode() designed or it is just a not-yet covered edge case?

Test case:

$api = new Github\Api();
$response = $api->head("/users");
$decoded = $api->decode($response);

Expected result: $decoded contains some empty value
Actual result: exception is thrown

[milo]

I'm not sure, this is the accurate behaviour, but the HTTP HEAD method is designed to never return the body contents. It returns only the headers, so I expected noone will decode it but will use only the $response->getHeader() and similar.

[xmojmr]

I know that there's really nothing useful in the content, I'd like to somehow reuse the generic error handling code in https://github.com/milo/github-api/blob/v1.4.0/src/Github/Api.php#L262-L290 and calling the Api::decode() seems to be the only way

[milo]

Errors handling part is tightly adherent to Github API specification, so Api::decode() is really the only place.

Btw. the HTTP part is already extracted to bitbang/http. (but the Api part from here is still missing)

[xmojmr]

Ok, thanks for explanation. The original reason why I wanted to use the Request::HEAD-style queries was to speed-optimize the CachedClient. It turned out that I'll need some more changes, e.g. FileCache with directory structure similar to "users/02/02047ca5656be6ac643cb5fcb9de8276d721a08e.php" to reduce the number of files in one directory.

Knowing that using Api::decode() for Request::HEAD queries does not make much sense and it is not recommended thing to do, is enough for me to continue.

Once I have some kind of refactored version which works for me ready, may be I'll propose a pull request

[milo]

@xmojmr Great. Looking forward.