Fixes Issue #5646 (httpGet() not showing friendly error message)

[reejuBhattacharya]

Resolves #5646

Changes:
Modified the httpGet() method to show Friendly Error Message when an error is thrown

Screenshots of the change:

Before:

After:

PR Checklist

• npm run lint passes

[reejuBhattacharya]

@limzykenneth @stalgiag Would love it if you would take a look at my PR. Thanks!

[limzykenneth]

I don't usually review FES stuff as I'm not as familiar with it but why is the implementation of httpGet modified here?

[reejuBhattacharya]

@limzykenneth
httpGet() was directly calling the httpDo() method using apply without making a call to the p5._friendlyFileLoadError() method, which generates the FES. I modified the implementation (similiar to how loadJSON and loadStrings are implemented) so that in the event of an error, p5._friendlyFileLoadError() is called, and then passes onto the users errorCallBack.

[limzykenneth]

If the idea is to patch in FES to httpGet, it would be easier to do it in httpDo itself otherwise we will need to apply the same patch to httpPost and httpDo separately.

[reejuBhattacharya]

I had the same idea at first tbh, However, httpDo() is used by all the IO functions to make requests, almost all of which already handles FES individually. Modifying httpDo() would mean modifying all the other IO functions as well to suit the changes.
Therefore, I leant towards modifying only httpGet() and subsequently httpPost() to show their own individual FES message.

[almchung]

Hi @reejuBhattacharya, thank you for taking your time to look into this issue! I can imagine people may benefit from the added error message. Although, I have some concerns about adding the httpGet() friendly error message.

1. err_name_not_resolved is used to describe a number of different underlying causes, and it may not be resolved via following a simple step. If we wish to be helpful, (1) we can consider linking a reliable and "friendly" resource for this error or (2) explain the situation a bit more and provide good search keywords so people can look up resources by themselves. This one is tricky!
2. I also agree that it would be cleaner (avoid duplicated codes) to do error handling of httpGet() and httpPost() through httpDo().

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns!

[Qianqianye]

Thank you @reejuBhattacharya for working on it. I am wondering if you might have thoughts on @almchung's concerns?

[Qianqianye]

Hi @reejuBhattacharya, we want to follow up with this pull request, and we are wondering if you could respond to @almchung's comments.

Meanwhile, I'm inviting this year's GSoC FES contributor @Ayush23Dash and mentors @nbriz and @almchung to this conversation, so we can decide how to move forward with this PR. Thanks.