Friendly Errors

text/0000-ember-data-friendly-errors.md

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+- Start Date: 2015-10-23
+- RFC PR: (leave this empty)
+- Ember Issue: (leave this empty)
+
+# Summary
+
+Add more illustrative detail to the default Ember Data Adapter Errors.
+
+# Motivation
+
+With a production Ember project, it's common to have many errors of the form "Adapter Error",
+originating from deep in the Ember Data stack and carrying little context about what the
+original error cause was.
+
+The intent is to add the original request URL, the response code, and some payload information
+to the default Error message for `DS.AdapterError`s. From there Errors can be handled or
+tracked as normal.
+
+# Detailed design
+
+I've been using something similar to the following Adapter (`friendly-error-adapter.js`):
+
+```js
+import ActiveModelAdapter from 'active-model-adapter';
+
+import DS from 'ember-data';
+
+export default ActiveModelAdapter.extend({
+
+  ajax(url, method)  {
+    this.lastRequest = {
+      url:    url,
+      method: method
+    };
+    return this._super(...arguments);
+  },
+
+  handleResponse: function (status, headers, payload) {
+    let payloadContentType = headers["Content-Type"].split(";").get("firstObject");
+    let shortenedPayload;
+
+    if (payloadContentType === "text/html" && payload.length > 250) {
+      shortenedPayload = "[omitted long blob of HTML]";
+    } else {
+      shortenedPayload = payload;
+    }
+
+    let errorMessage = `Ember Data Error (${this.lastRequest.method} ${this.lastRequest.url} returned a ${status}). \n Payload (${payloadContentType}): \n\n ${shortenedPayload}`;
+
+    if (this.isSuccess(status, headers, payload)) {
+      return payload;
+    } else if (this.isInvalid(status, headers, payload)) {
+      return new DS.InvalidError(payload.errors, errorMessage);
+    }
+
+    let errors = this.normalizeErrorResponse(status, headers, payload);
+
+    return new DS.AdapterError(errors, errorMessage);
+  }
+});
+```
+
+(Note that the code inside the adapter could be MUCH simpler and cleaner, the above
+is a very quick hacked up example! :bomb:)
+
+The intent is to get an error message out of the form:
+
+ 1. "Ember Data Error"
+ 2. Request Method & URI
+ 3. Response Status
+ 4. Response Content Type
+ 5. A sane representation of the Response payload
+
+# Drawbacks
+
+Adding complexity to an Error handler always runs the risk of generating errors inside
+the handler itself, which would not be overly friendly.
+
+# Alternatives
+
+There's probably quite a few different pieces of information that could be included
+in the message.
+
+We could also potentially look at attaching the extra information to other fields on
+the `AdapterError` (and its subclasses). The only drawback there would be that most
+error reporters would then not include that information by default.
+
+# Unresolved questions
+
+ * Exact Error Message Format