vii. Advance source Usage

Advanced source Usage

In the example below, the user is sending an invalid JSON API request, because it’s missing the data member:

PATCH /posts/1 HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/vnd.api+json
Accept: application/vnd.api+json

{ "datum": [ ] }

Therefore, the server responds:

HTTP/1.1 422 Unprocesssable Entity
Content-Type: application/vnd.api+json

{
  "errors": [
    {
      "source": { "pointer": "" },
      "detail":  "Missing `data` Member at document's top level."
    }
  ]
}

It uses source to point to the top-level of the document (""). (Pointing to “/” would be an appropriate reference to the string "some value" in the request document {"": "some value"}. Pointing to "/data" would be invalid because the request document did not have a value at "/data", and source is always given with reference to the request document.)

If the server cannot parse the request as valid JSON, including source doesn’t make sense (because there’s no JSON document for source to refer to). Here’s how the server might respond to an invalid JSON document:

{
  "errors": [{
    "status": "400",
    "detail": "JSON parse error - Expecting property name at line 1 column 2 (char 1)."
  }]
}

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Source(s):

• http://jsonapi.org/examples/#error-objects-source-usage